LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

©fern, mill T^a 

t> A t 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



V. 



r 



MR. BLAKE'S BOOKS. 

Essays. Cloth, 216 pages, . . . . . . . . . . . . $1.00 

Poems. Cloth, 188 pages, .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1.00 

A Grateful Spirit, and other sermons. Cloth, 303 pages, . . . . 1.00 

Happiness from Thoughts, and other sermons. 290 pages, .. .. 100 

Natural Beligion in Sermons. 228jpages. .. .. .. I.C0 

St. Soliper, with Other Worthies and Unworthies. Cloth, 179 pages, 1.00 

The six volumes just named are uniform in binding, dark blue vellum 
cloth, red burnished top, paper label. 
St. Solifer, with Other Worthies and Unworthies. Paper (Unity Library 

No. 4, 179 pages), . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50 

Legends from Storyland. Cloth, square 16 mo., 97 pages, .. .. .50 

Manual Training in Education. Square 18mo., 94 pages, cloth, .. .50 

Paper, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... .25 



NATURAL RELIGION 



IN- 



SERMONS 



— BY — 



Jaivles Vila Blake 



)V 5 1892 



CHICAGO 

Charles H. Kerr & Company 

1892. 



K> 



.H£ LIBRARY 
OF CONGRESS 

WASHINGTON 



i j ! . ■» i ii — 



as 






Copyright by 

James Vila Blake 

1892 



CONTENTS. 



What is Religion v 
Eeligion and Ethics, 
Doing and Knowing I., 
" " " II., . . 

" « " III., 

«« IV., . . 
Time in Religion I., 

" " " II., 

" " " III., 

He that was to come, 
Admiration, Hope and Love, 
Love to God, 
Fear of God, 
Immortal Life, 
Natural Religion, 
Effect of Belief on Character, 
Natural Religion, 



After- Thoughts and Readings, 



Page. 

11 

23 

31 

39 

49 

57 

67 

77 

87 

97 

107 

115 

125 

139 

153 

165 

171 

181 

193 

215 



TO 
HORACE H. BADGER 

WITH FRIENDSHIP THREE-FOLD JOYFUL, 

BY LOVE, BY TRUST, 

BY ADMIRATION. 



WHAT IS BELIGION? 



An apostle says it is to visit the fatherless and widows in their 
affliction and to keep oneself unspotted from the world." In this 
passage from the epistle of James, religion is a practical inter- 
est in the market, the court, the street, daily goodness, worthi- 
ness of life. Luther thought religion to be salvation by faith. 
He detested the epistle of James, and called it, as is well known, 
an epistle of straw, " straminea epistola." The great reformer is 
not the first man, nor the last, who, while professing to found on 
sacred writ, has disposed thus easily of whatever tried his 
theological patience. But is Luther right ? or is James right ? 
or who is right among the many diverse thinkers on religion? 
What is religion ? At least it seems a reality, which sometimes 
sweeps over our souls, filling us with a strange light and feeling 
of life, joy, peace. Is it a high, pure morality, as James and 
many others say ? Is it faith in some means of grace and sal- 
vation, as Luther and many others declare? Is it sacrifice, or 
prayer, or worship of God, as still others tell us ? Is it devotion 
and striving unto the truth, as some would have it ? or, as I 
have heard it defined, " an aspiration toward the ideal?" 

Here is a strange thing ! Yefc the fact meets us in many 
things every day! We all speak about religion, truly we feel it, 
we build churches for it, we come together in them to seek its 
inspiration. Yet if we ask what religion is, no one can define 
it or tell what it is. 

First, let us ask, Is religion a form? or practice of a form? 
or any kind of observance? In reply, Whether is the outward 
act the more important, or the inward state, feeling, experience 
which impels to the act ? Ought not the inward condition to be 
named religion? Form is but expression. Not the mode of 
expression, but what is expressed, not the language but the 



2 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

meaning, is essential. Besides, form is the variable element. 
The same feeling or thought may be expressed in many ways. 
Beligious forms vary as languages do. Eefined and barbarous 
tongues thrill equally with human love, joy and woe. If, there- 
fore, form be religion, — what form? And why any one form? 
For all convey the tremblings of the same spirit. They utter 
in different speech the universal prayer. And if there be no 
form, no constant uniformity of expression, nay, if there be no 
expression at all, and silence hang as a veil before this holy of 
holies, the religious experience of the soul, — what matter? 
Doth a man not love because he proclaims it not on the house- 
tops ? Is religion naught if it hide in the heart and commune 
with God unspeaking? Plainly religion is not form or forms. 
It is that inward reality, whatever it be, which may take all 
forms or none. It makes its own fit expression at need. It 
lives tranquilly also in a sacred silence. 

But if religion be something inward, resident in the spirit, 
shall we have recourse to belief? Is religion belief of certain 
doctrine or doctrines? Is it assent to a statement or creed? 

But opposing doctrines have been held with equal fervor 
and self-sacrifice. Martyrs prove not truth. Men have perished 
by sword and flame for Judaism, Mohammedanism, Unitarianism, 
as readily and firmly as for the great church and its orthodoxy. 
The Bomanist shows a long and cherished list of martyrs ; but 
Boman persecution has enriched all communions with sacrifices 
no less glorious. It seems then hard to tell, if religion be a 
belief in doctrines, ivhat doctrines constitute religion. For all 
have the witness of human devotion unto death. Between 
doctrines so hallowed, will you decide which is religion ? Shall 
I decide ? Shall there be an authority to decree ? Then relig- 
ion is but repetition, recitation, profession without personal 
answerableness. Besides, shall we say all those ages and peo- 
ples were void of religion which had not that authority and its 
decrees? Shall, then, each man decide for himself? But we 
are fallible beings. The most earnest mind may err. There- 
fore surely the spirit is to be considered more than the result, 
and an honest mistake surely can not be irreligious or unre- 
ligious. 

So then, doctrines and forms seem no more than the gar- 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 3 

ments of religion. If still we ask what true religion is, we must 
go deeply to the inward and unutterable, to facts of the spirit 
more sacred and essential than any belief whatever. 

Let us ask, then, What this still deeper reality of the spirit 
is? this that creates forms and empowers belief. For this that 
underlies all the many expressions of religion, surely must be 
a pure and simple religiousness. 

Religion, in common experience everywhere, is at least so 
much as this, — a going forth of the spirit in devout feelings and 
adorations. It is homage, devotion, veneration, awe. So much, 
I say, it is at least. Whatever more religion may be, at least it 
is this. It takes many forms. It invests many different things, 
with sanctity; at last all things, by its fulness of beauty and 
power. But underneath all the changing ways and forms of 
men, amid all the harsh struggle of the creeds, religion lies 
the self- same in every religious heart, — hope, trust, adora- 
tion. This may turn aside to ugly forms, wretched objects, 
harsh creeds; but itself abides essentially indestructible, unde- 
nted. I mean not that bad forms and worse creeds impede 
not this inner adoration. They do hinder it. I deem the harm 
done by the doctrine of salvation by blood- atonement to pure 
religious adoration, very great. But I say, that such a doc- 
trine, and others worse, corrupt not the adoring spirit at its 
depths. They may hinder and clog it, — no more. It is like 
flame which, however feeble or smoke-mingled, still is flame, 
pure and incorruptible. 

What now calls forth a pure and perfect adoration? 
What does the good spirit, — or the spirit in its undefiled deeps — 
adore, venerate, love and worship ? Only Holiness, Truth, and 
Loveliness, — "The Good, the Beautiful and the True." It is purely 
religious to believe in these, to be filled with love and veneration 
for them. The spirit, in the springs of its worship, is undefiled. 
It aspires, therefore, to the Infinitely Good. It adores at last 
the undefiled, like itself. Perfect Holiness, Pure Truth, Divine 
Beauty, these it worships. Before these it bows down, kneels, 
fears, loves. It veils not its eyes, nor abases itself. Not such 
its way of worship — though with awe. For only in adoration of 
the Perfect Beauty, and Goodness, does it know its own unde- 
filed being. 



4 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

But now it is asked, If religion be adoration of Beauty 
and Holiness, what is morality ? Morality, surely, is no more 
outward than religion. Morality is not a good act. It is the 
goodness of the act. Men differ about the justice and righteous- 
ness of many things. Good men differ sincerely and uprightly. 
Therefore morality resides in the inward state, in pure motive 
and conscientiousness, in devotion to the true and the good. 
How then distinguished from religion ? Yet, surely, they are 
not the same. We never use the words indifferently. 

The question is just. Beligion and morality mean not the 
same, though they can not part and live in their grandeurs. 
Let us make the difference clear. 

Man, as he grows in soul, is placed in two different relations 
with Beauty and Goodness. In one relation he scans his own soul. 
Beauty and Goodness then appear to him as ideal qualities 
which it is the business of the soul to make real, in itself. He 
finds himself imperfect, selfish, passionate, unkind, untrue, un- 
earnest. But from the center of him, the spring of life pure and 
undefiled, grows the command, " These things thou shalt not 
be; lo! here in thy very life and essence, thou art written down 
Beautiful and Holy. Follow thine own real nature. The Good, 
the Beautiful, the True, are the image of what thou art by 
nature here where thou canst not be defiled, and the image 
of what thou shalt be in very deed and truth, by sanctified will 
and holy devotion." Morality, therefore, views the Good and 
Beautiful as unrealized and to be realized. It aspires to them as 
to the end of being. It contemplates them as its ideal, the high 
image shrined within of what it is not, but ought to be, and 
shall be. 

But again, man looks forth abroad over the wide creation, 
and into his own spirit, no longer as a solitude of moral 
obligations, He contemplates all before him as part of one 
mighty whole. Then the Good, the Beautiful and the True 
shine out with real light. No longer hoped for only, they are 
found. What his devotion burned to, as the aim, destiny, ideal, 
of his being, now he adores as the present and perfect nature of 
all being. Holiness surrounds him. He lives in the righteous 
Unity. Beauty, Truth, Goodness, Love, all that is pure and 
lovely, Divine, Infinitely Beautiful, shines everywhere, flows in 



WHAT IS EELIGION? 5 

the streams, rivers and rains, follows the starry paths of the sky, 
flies with the invisible winds, and lights the earth with divine 
radiance from saint and prophet, " mother and child." Then 
the soul comes forth in pure and supreme adoration of this Holy 
Being. This adoration is Eeligion. 

Religion and Ethics have the same root, namely, the dis- 
tinction between Good and Evil; Right and Wrong. This is in- 
volved in saying that each is fundamentally a mental attitude 
toward the Good, the Beautiful and the True. 

But they differ in the attitude. 

Religion adores the Good, the Beautiful and the True as 
Being, Infinitely Manifest and Eternal, and the Source of us. 

Ethics bows to the Good, the Beautiful and the True, not 
as now Being, but as an ideality to be made to be by us. 

Religion is that inward experience which binds us back to 
our Source, and is Emotion, Awe, Love, Adoration, Devotion. 

Morality is that inward sanction which commands us to 
live unto our natural ideal, end and aim, and is a Principle — 
obligation, self-requirement, self-answerableness. 

And Religion must be suffused with the Ethical Principle of 
Righteousness. 

And Morality must be suffused with the Religious Emotion 
— Reverence, the Sense of the Awfulness of the Ought, 
and of its unity with all life. 

But can they be parted and live? I think in their low 
forms they can ; in their exalted, complete forms, not. But relig- 
ion is at once the more spiritual, fecund, creative, — and depend- 
ent. It has the seeds of all life in it. Yet Ethics can grow bet- 
ter without Religion than Religion without Ethics. . This would 
seem to follow from their nature, as I have stated it. For the 
initial impulse of Religion is the sentiment which binds us back 
to our Source. In the beginning I suppose that sentiment is 
fear — mainly at least, -perhaps wholly. It is only in its fulness 
and glory that religion adores our Source as the Good, the 
Beautiful and the True. But it is in these thoughts that Ethics 
has its root. Therefore Ethics begins with a substance which 
Religion must grow to. But whether Religion must grow to it 
before Ethics can begin with it, may be a question. Or whether 
Religion and Ethics grow together and feed each other, from the 



6 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

beginning. I like not to divide man into parts or faculties, and 
say, this part did so, or this other part so ; for the whole man 
acts in all. Yet, also, one form of growth may forerun another. 
But this seems certain, that Ethics can attain a greater nobility 
and purity among persons disowning Eeligion, than Eeligion can 
attain among persons disowning Ethics or heedless of it. 

I return, now, once more to my simple statement of Eeligion 
and Morality: 

Morality is devotion to Beauty, Truth and Holiness as to be 
realized in us and by us; Eeligion is adoration of Beauty, Truth 
and Holiness as realized and radiant in Being. 

" Its altars a/re the mountains and the ocean, 

Earth, air, stars, all that springs from the Great Whole, 

Who hath produced, and will receive the soul." 

But now I shall be reminded that I have not spoken of 
God, the Father. " Do you mean to say that one who will not 
name God may be religious?" Yes, I think so. I mean to 
say so. He that can not utter the Great and Holy Name is one 
whose idea of the Being which is Holy and Beautiful differs from 
yours and mine. But if still he reverence and love the resident 
Beauty and Goodness, why shall he not be called religious ? His 
heart may be thrilled by the light, the day, the night, the sweet 
earth, the opening flower, the innocence of childhood, the ven- 
erableness of age. Is not that religious, devout? If such a one 
be called irreligious or unreligious, I will leave the sentence to 
Him who sees and knows the heart, which I can not see. Yet I 
would rather be such than many a so-called believer. Do you 
remember the picture the poet draws of the dreadful man of 
faith?— 

"A man austere, 
The instinct of whose nature was to kill ; 
The wrath of God he preached from year to year, 
And read, with fervor, Edwards on the Will ; 
His favorite pastime was to slay the deer 
In summer on some Adirondac Hill ; 
E'en now, while walking down the rural lane, 
He lopped the way-side lilies with his cane." 

Have you never known a man who could not see the living 
spirit of God, and frankly said so, yet touched with speechless 
veneration and tender care the brittle fern leaf, would not 
break or bruise the sighing reed, looked with solemn reverence 



WHAT IS BELIGION? 7 

on every creeping thing whose life he could not make and would 
not destroy, gazed with strange rapture into the unknown depths 
of an animal's eye, and felt his own fill with tears at the beauty 
of the earth's green and gold on hill and plain? Which of 
the two, think you, is the more religious man? He who lopped 
the lily ruthlessly, because therewith he spoke a name for the 
maker of the lily? Nay, rather than so, I would speak no 
name. Surely I should be loved and not judged harshly, nor mis- 
judged by Him who cares not for names but sees the thoughts of 
the heart, and everywhere is the Living Spirit who " out of his 
own beauty maketh all things fair." 



Note — Eegarding the last paragraph of this sermon I will 
add the following: 

I agree thankfully with those who say that the thought of 
God is necessary to Eeligion. But this is not the same as to 
say that no one can be religious who denies that thought. For 
a sentiment, a feeling, even a character may be religious with- 
out Religion, just as a tone or a concord may be musical but is not 
music. Far more is included in music than a musical tone ; in 
like manner far more is embraced in Eeligion than a religious 
sentiment or tone of mind. When it is said that the thought of 
God is necessary to Eeligion, it is meant, not that there can be 
naught religious without that thought or name, but that Eeligion in 
its completeness comes to that thought, and that Eeligion must 
be defined by all it comes to, not by any partial manifesta- 
tion of it on its way to its full and perfect nature. This truth 
was set forth by David Wasson twenty years ago in a manner 
all satisfying to my reason, in a notable discussion at that time. 
He was examining a definition of Eeligion then offered, namely 
that " Eeligion is man's effort to perfect himself." I will take 
here the substance and general expression of his argument. 
Eeligion he says, is compatible with unbelief in God only as the 
raising of wheat is compatible with bad weather or as life in a 
human body is compatible with having no legs. But no infer- 



8 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

ence can be made from such compatibility to the true nature of 
Religion ; for can we say that wheat involves bad weather or is 
indifferent to good weather, or that legs appertain not naturally 
to the human form and should not be a part of the definition of 
it ? It is true that some religious men have not attributed to 
Eeligion this significance — the thought of God. That is, some 
men have been religious without avowed belief in God or even 
with avowed unbelief. But this fact could show that the 
thought of God is not needful to a right definition of Religion only 
if it were shown that a moving principle in man never fails to report 
its full significance m the opinion of all who are moved by it. But this is 
not the fact and can not be shown; and Ethics as well as 
Religion affords illustration. The moral sentiment has been 
explained as mere self-interest, as the factitious effect of educa- 
tion, and in many other ways. What now if we should reason 
that the moral sentiment can not signify anything more than 
self-interest since there are men of moral behavior and moved 
by right attractions who have thought there is nothing in 
human nature superior to self-interest ? It is not sound think- 
ing to define by the inferior limit, that is, the least that a given 
kind of thing can be; but rather by the superior limit, that is, the 
utmost that it tends to, comes to, and includes. Definition by 
the inferior limit, indeed, is no definition, but merely a classifica- 
tion. Man is a vertebrate animal ; but to say this is not to give 
an account of man, but simply to classify him. It is to say what 
he is in common with a fish, not what he is as man. As man he 
must be defined by the superior limit, the utmost he can come 
to. So with Religion. It is defined to my mind and desire by 
what it may become at the top. I study it to learn what it is 
in its widest embrace of ideas, in its richest content. This gives 
me its true nature. And therein I find, present, constant, 
essential, the thought of God. Such is the argument of Wasson. 
(See " The Radical," May, 1870.) In accordance with it, I 
have been careful not to say in the sermon that my description 
of Religion is a definition or complete account of it, or even a 
statement of its highest idea ; but only that Religion is at least so 
much as I have described it to be. And this I have done with 
two motives — to show that even in so much of its content it is a 
different thing from Ethics ; and to say that Religion is so much 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 



a state of the heart that a man may be religious who is far from 
avowing the highest idea embraced by the perfect and true 
nature of Eeligion, nay, even more religious than one who avows 
that highest idea with his mouth " but his heart is far from it." 



EELIGION AND ETHICS. 



I will pursue the subject of my last sermon, Religion and 
its relation to Morality, more in detail. 

My question is, " Is any religion other than purely scien- 
tific Ethics necessary or desirable?" The question is stated 
carefully. Religion might be necessary, and if necessary, of 
course desirable; but it might be desirable even if not necessary. 

Let us understand at the outset the terms with which we 
have to deal. What is Ethics and what is Scientific Ethics? 

Happily these are terms that may be defined easily and 
accurately. Ethics is simply the principles of right conduct. 
Scientific Ethics means the principles of right conduct not 
merely stated as rules, but evolved in an orderly manner; fur- 
nished with a basis in the nature of things, and combined together 
in general statements and laws. Thus, in a word, Ethics is 
the rule or art of right conduct in human life; and Scientific 
Ethics is that rule or art formulated as a part of the nature of 
things. 

Evidently this is a noble study. Many persons think it 
is the noblest of all the spheres of human contemplation and 
emotion. Such persons say that the study of Ethics gives all 
the inspiration that human life can need. They say that it 
is the sufficient source and explanation of all human progress 
and happiness. They tell us that Ethics has this great point, 
that it can be understood. Here at last, they say, we have 
something toward which we can see a perpetual progress. By 
study of Ethics we can understand the relations of individuals 
to each other, and to society. The questions commonly called 
religious, these persons say, are remote. They are distant and 
dim. They are beyond our perception or our reason. Questions 
of prayer, of worship, of Providence, of the impenetrable future, 



12 EELIGION AND ETHICS. 

which may be or may not be, beyond the vale of death, are mat- 
ters beyond our ken. So too, the question of unseen existence 
and of its relation to us; of the mind and the spiritual being, 
and their relations to the body. All such, they say, lie in a 
domain which we can not enter. Of the very existence of that 
sphere, we must remain in doubt. To try to penetrate it takes 
human time to no purpose. The mind then fills with hopes, 
desires, or fears, useless superstitions. Emotions awake which 
have no import or worth in human life. The mind thus is 
withdrawn from a fruitful meditation of present needs, and of 
our high responsibilities at the present moment. Instead of these 
useful thoughts, we are misled by contemplations either selfish 
or empty, or at least, far beyond the proper realm of our know- 
ing powers. Better and nobler, these persons say, it is, both in 
effect on our characters, and in usefulness to the world, 
to be busy with the duties and needs which are to be under- 
stood clearly and lie closely at hand. We are in a world, 
they tell us, full of errors, weighted with selfishness, struggling 
with the problems of crime, of labor, of all manner of injustice, 
of education, of wealth, of temperance. Why should we waste 
our time thinking of our relations to unseen things that we 
know not, when not yet we have learned how to do our duty to 
each other? What is to be will be. What is to become of us 
when our eyes close in death, will become of us. We can not 
alter it, any more than know it. But we can go to work bravely 
and unselfishly, with love of mankind, to wrestle with the evil 
before our eyes; to uplift the fallen, to find and save the lost, to 
reclaim the criminal, to comfort the sorrowing, to heal the 
sick. This is religion, they tell us, so far as that word has any 
valid meaning for us. By this, whatever may become of us 
when we fly away, we shall have helped to leave the world bet- 
ter for those who come after; perhaps shed blessings along 
our path. 

This is the moral teaching which my question supposes 
when it asks whether any other religion than this, pure, elevated 
Ethics, scientifically based and unfolded, is necessary or desir- 
able. 

Now, let me bear my witness to the nobility of this teach- 
ing. I would not say one word to disparage it. It were a 



RELIGION AND ETHICS. 13 

ruthless hand that would detract from the high praise of it, or 
dim the beauty of its usefulness. To my mind it is incomplete ; 
it answers not the whole of human need or power, or of human 
experience; and this I shall try to show. But it is not the 
incompleteness of indolence or selfishness. 

If I had to choose between Ethics and Beligion, I would 
take my part with Ethics. Better to have a glorious, unselfish, 
hardworking, aspiring morality without religion, than to per- 
suade one's self there is a religion without morality. I can not 
state this too strongly, I can not honor too much the ethical 
school for the sincere grandeur of their purpose. But I think 
they pursue their purpose by a cramped and narrow method. 
'Tis a grand thing sought in a limited mechanical way. They 
turn into a side-lot on the great highway. Be that lot greater 
or smaller, it is not the whole landscape ; neither is it the high- 
way. I believe Beligion to be, in addition, a great and sacred 
fact, both needful and to be desired. 

I will not try in the beginning to define Beligion, as I have 
defined Ethics, because the definition is by no means so simple 
or so easy. I could not define it without assuming some of the 
very things which are at issue with those who think Beligion 
either unreal or untrue, as answering to no facts; or else useless 
and unmeaning, as treating of things unknowable by us. Still, 
my main reason for attempting no definition of Beligion at the 
outset is that I shall give one before I finish, for it is right and 
needful to know clearly what we mean by terms. Yet, even at 
the outset, I must have some idea of what I mean by the word 
" Beligion." I must use it in some sense understood clearly. 
So I will find this sense and partial definition in a question 
which religion asks. That question is, Our origin. Whence are 
we? From what do we spring? Now, Science asks this question 
too, but very differently from Beligion. Science asks it precisely 
as it investigates the place of man among animals, simply from 
curiosity and thirst of knowledge. This though noble, is not 
emotion. Whether the answer be one thing or another, 'tis no 
matter to science. Science is satisfied. But religion asks the 
question " Whence come we ? " with deep feeling, as we may 
conceive done by a person ignorant of his parenthood, yearning 
to know it. Suppose one has grown up with strangers. He 



14 RELIGION AND ETHICS. 

longs then to know of his father, of his mother, whether he 
had brothers and sisters, not as items of knowledge, but as 
things pertaining to deep needs of relationship, of love within 
him. In this way Eeligion asks the question, " Whence have 
we come ? What is our origin ? " So much, I think, will be 
conceded. If there be any such thing as religion at all, or any 
facts in us to which the name answers, it contains so much, at 
least, as this question, " Whence come we?" asked with yearn- 
ing and love. Many other questions also it asks ; but this at 
least, and certainly. So much, then, we will start with. 

Ethics asks no such question. It takes our being here as 
it finds it, and is busy with the question, What conduct is proper 
for such beings as we are? 

Now the question " Whether Keligion, as thus distinguished 
from Ethics, is necessary or desirable," is an immense question, 
altogether beyond the scope of one discourse, if I were to treat it 
fully. It involves a discussion of the adaption of Eeligion to 
the human mind in all the powers of the mind. We could not 
discuss the question fully until we should arrive at a definition of 
Eeligion as valid as that which I have given of Ethics. We must 
have not only a valid idea of religion so far as the idea goes, 
but a plenary and complete idea of it; and then we should have 
to study the relation of that to human thinking, human feeling, 
human sentiments and needs. We should have to ask our- 
selves, indeed, What is the ideal of a complete man? These 
subjects branch so widely and run so endlessly through all the 
kinds of human knowledge and experience, that I must hold 
myself in this discourse strictly to one point, in order to meet 
the question with some thoroughness. But if I can show that 
Eeligion is essentially a different thing from Ethics, and differ- 
ent in a very great manner, because it contains an element 
which is not in Ethics, but nevertheless answers to a very deep 
reality in human experience, as it is now and as it must continue 
to be, then at least, I shall have shown a place for Eeligion ; and 
it will be thought needful or desirable in proportion to the depth 
and worth of the human experience to which it relates. 

To do this I will take the one point, of the relations of 
Ethics and of Eeligion to Time. I take this because it is funda- 
mental, and because it has been treated less than any of the 



RELIGION AND ETHICS. 15 

many other aspects of the question which I might study. 
What, then, are the relations of Ethics and Eeligion to Time in 
the three-fold aspect of Time, the past, present and future ? 

Both Eeligion and Ethics stand in close relation to the pres- 
ent. Ethics relates to the present by its study of the laws 
of conduct. Its question is, What ought we to do in this 
present condition of things ? Eeligion too is related to the pres- 
ent, because that one great question which we have agreed to 
start with, as included in Eeligion — the question, " Whence 
come we ? " — means whence come we hither? From what origin 
do we find ourselves here? Eeligion must contemplate the 
source of us, as continuing us and continuing with us here; at 
least, the question arises necessarily, Is it so? Is the source 
from which we come existent also in the conditions in which 
we are ? 

Again, Eeligion and Ethics are both related strictly to the 
future. Ethics pertains to the future because it aims chiefly at 
a betterment of our condition. Its object is to improve human 
conduct, thus making the world better than it is. It bids a 
man devote himself not only to other people, but to coming 
times, laying plans for a nobler, a purer society. Eeligion, too, 
relates itself to the future because the question, Whence are 
we? What is our source ? and the related questions that come 
trooping therewith about the present, involve the questions also, 
Whither go we? What becomes of us? What relation to our 
source do our destiny, our aim and end maintain? So then 
both Eeligion and Ethics have to do with the present and the 
future, the things here, and the coming things. 

But what shall be said of the past? Do Ethics and Eeligion 
both stand related to the past as to the present and to the 
future? No. This is the privilege or nature of Eeligion alone. 
Ethics is a sum of principles which have no vital dependence 
whatever on the past. Ethics has a history, of course. It may 
have curious historical questions. It may develop its principles 
partly by the help of the study of its history. But every princi- 
ple in it would be just the same without regard to the past. Not 
so with Eeligion. Its question, " Whence come we ? What is 
our source ? " questions the past. It stands in vital connec- 
tion with the past. Without that meditation backward, that one 



16 RELIGION AND ETHICS. 

question would be impossible. Eeligion dreams of a time, as it 
were, before time; of a source which appears at one with 
eternity, as at least unmeasured, perhaps immeasurable. It 
dreams of something before memory; from which, indeed, mem- 
ory sprung; something which is the source of reason, the 
unfathomable abyss of love, the mystery of thought, the creative- 
ness of imagination. It dreams of all these as coming from a 
source which is not simply now in them, but always was; in 
which the past reaches backward until it fades before the eye as 
the depths of the sea fade. This is what is said in the ode 
of Wordsworth on " Immortality:" Our questioning of our 
Source is a dream of it, in a manner a reminiscence or presence 
of it in us. We come 

"Not in entire forgetfulness, 
And not in utter nakedness, 
But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
From God who is our home. 

* * * 
Though inland far we be, 

Our souls have sight of that immortal sea 
Which brought us hither — 
Can in a moment travel thither, 

* * * 
In the primal sympathy 

Which having been, must ever be." 

Here is a vast difference between Ethics and Eeligion. We see at 
once a difference by which Religion relates itself to an immense 
realm of thought and sentiment in human nature which not only is 
there, but must always continue to be there. With this, Ethics 
has no relation whatever. Both Religion and Ethics bring the 
human mind to the bar of the present; both set it face to face 
with the future; but Religion alone turns its face toward the 
past, by reason of that one mighty question, which, at least, is 
conceded to it if there be any reality in it at all, the question, 
" Whence come we? What is our source?" 

Now, in what way are Ethics and Religion related to these 
three orders of time ? In what different ways do they confront 
time by reason of their different natures? 

Religion, so far as now we have defined it, looks into the 
past with awe. For its question of our source is at once inevit- 
able and unanswerable. It must ask it; it must ask forever. In 
the asking lies all the answer. So Religion alone fronts the past. 



RELIGION AND ETHICS. 17 

But now, of both Ethics and Eeligion as to the present. To 
the present Ethics stands as related to the sphere of effort and 
of the direct scope of responsibility. Eeligion stands in the 
present with that same AWE with which it looks to the past ; 
but to this is added by stress of present experience the sense of 
need, of dependence, of joy and of gratefulness. It looks at 
the present as a great sphere under an awful and also a benign 
sky, filled with sunshine, racked with storms. Man is a will 
and power, even a mighty power; he is also a creature tossed 
and torn ruthlessly by the tempests, and warmed and blest 
by the sunshine. These he makes not. He has sorrows and 
comforts, trials and strength, joys and bounding sense of being 
at home in the world. And the world he makes not. So both 
Ethics and Eeligion turn to the present; but Eeligion with a 
wonderful awe and love; and our Source in the past is con- 
ceived as one with our Dependence in the present. 

To the future Ethics stands related as to the sphere of 
improvement, as giving scope for progress. Eeligion turns to 
the future with an awe to which now trust is added. For all 
the experience of the present with its bending sky of light as 
well as of storms, of joys as well as sorrows, and the sense of 
the unity of all in the one Source about which Eeligion must 
question, — this creates a trust that the same benefits, the same 
facts, the same right relations to human nature must go on. 
And so it trusts for to-morrow, and for next year, and for a 
life-time, and then, by a mighty leap of thought, for ten thousand 
and ten hundred thousand years. 

Now, as yet, I think I have claimed nothing in Eeligion 
which flows not necessarily from its question, Whence come we? 
What is is our source? which we have conceded to be in Eeligion 
if it have any reality at all. But now I may take one more step 
in unfolding the contents of Eeligion, the only other one I shall 
take in this sermon ; that step is this : Both Ethics and Eeligion 
regard " the Good, the Beautiful and the True." Very interesting it 
would be to try to trace the coming of these ideas into mental 
experience, but that is an immense subject which only I can 
refer to here. Very interesting would it be to trace the essential 
oneness of the Good, the Beautiful and the True; to show not 
only the fact, but the reason thereof, that nothing is beautiful 



18 RELIGION AND ETHICS. 

which is not true, and that nothing can be true which is not good, 
and that nothing can he good which is not beauty. But this, 
also, is a theme by itself. However arising, or whatever the 
intimate relations between the Good, the Beautiful and the True, 
there they are, shining, glorious, commanding, alike in Ethics 
and in Beligion. 

Now, how do these two, Ethics and Keligion, stand related 
to these great ideas? I answer thus: Man looks abroad into 
the field of nature and of human nature, and sees the Good, the 
Beautiful and the True as now radiant all about him in Being. 
He knows the glory and majesty of the heavens, the tender 
beauty of the earth and the melody and music of its streams, of 
its waving forests and of its rainfall, the splendor of its summer 
and the royal ermine of its winter dress, its immeasurable 
beauties both in the grand and minute. Standing also on 
the hill of knowledge, the gathered experience of many ages, 
and surveying the field of human history, he sees that rolling, 
deep and everlasting movement, the "stream of tendency," sweep- 
ing on resistlessly to conditions better and better, floating, 
bearing on and up all good and true things, covering and sink- 
ing in its depths, out of human sight and memory, the bad and 
wretched — a consistent and beautiful progress; an evolution of 
health and help and strength along the highway of human 
history. 

Man looks also into his own ideality, which can be only the 
reflection of the infinite truth to which he is related, of that 
questioned and yet unquestionable source from which he springs ; 
and there he perceives the perfect. He lives in the unimpeach- 
able ideal; he dreams far beyond the experience of his imper- 
fection ; and the Good, the Beautiful and the True are 
ranged with the absolute, the Perfect, the Infinite and the Eternal. 
Hence arises ad- ration, with which Beligion fills the present 
moment. Here we find the question asked by Religion, with 
which we started, which turned the face of Religion to the past, 
completed and glorified in the direct sight of the Beautiful, the 
Good and the True, now radiant in Being. Before this, 
man bends in adoration. He no longer looks backward with 
deep questioning ; he no longer looks forward with so strenuous 
expectation. He is immersed, satisfied, glorified in the now, in 



BELIG ION AND ETHICS. 19 

the Good, the Beautiful and the True, which are now, pressing on 
every sense, following every thought, glorifying every feeling, 
here, now shining in Being. And the Being and our Source are one. 

But again, man looks into himself, not abroad, where the 
" stream of tendency " makes human history divine, and 
the majesty and the beauty make the heavens and the earth 
glorious ; or even into his own ideality where the perfect is ; but 
into himself as he lives day by day. There he sees the Good, 
the Beautiful and the True, not as an actuality save only in little 
part, not radiant as an all- containing fact, but only as a sense 
of what he was made for, and what he must strive to be. He 
perceives evil within him, failure, unfaithfulness, triumphs of 
selfishness, and all manner of wrong; but also he feels with 
these things the command, "These things thou shalt not be; 
thou art made to produce in thyself evermore the Good, the 
Beautiful and the True." Hence, Ethics contemplates the present 
but as a place of judgment, a point in direction, a condition 
for disapproval and for condemnation as well as for resolution 
and for courage. It turns to the future and works for it. It 
demands faithful service in the present moment, for the pursuit 
of the ideal which is to work out improvement for the next 
day, the next year, or the next century, and build up the Good, 
the Beautiful and the True in the individual character and in 
society. Religion is the adoration of the Good, the Beautiful 
and the True as now realized and radiant in Being. Ethics is 
adoration of the Good, the Beautiful and the True as t> be realized 
in us and by us. Religion, by its question, Whence are we? 
What is our source? unites us with adoration to our good, beau- 
tiful and holy Source, and adores and worships the glory from 
which we come. Ethics points not at all to our Source, but to 
our destiny in character; to the end and aim of our active nature, 
and our duties thereby, and to the unfolding of the ideal by us. 

Here I come, at last, to the definition of Religion which I 
said I should give in ending, and it is the definition which of 
all that ever I have thought or seen I love best to dwell upon. 
Religion is that which binds us back ; binds us, that is, to our 
Source; the sentiment, the love, the reverence and awe, the 
adoration, the worship with which we meditate on that wonder 
of our own being, which is the same wonder spread all before 



20 RELIGION AND ETHICS. 

our eyes, and before our reason ; the unutterable emotion with 
which we think by day or night, that in whatever condition we 
may be, involved in darkness, chained in sleep, busy in duties, 
we live and move and have our being in that wherein also our 
Source is. We go not afar; there is no place where it is 
possible to wander ; there is no region where we are not at home. 

Eeligion is that which binds us back, back evermore to our 
Source. Ethics or Morality points us ever forward. 

Thus, I have tried to show that of Eeligion and Ethics 
each has its own province and end. I have tried to show 
this by their diverse relations to Time. If I have succeeeded in 
the attempt; — if, by taking as the meaning of Eeligion the sim- 
plest content which can be ascribed to it, namely, its question 
about our Source, I have shown that it alone relates us to one 
of the three orders of time, namely, the past, and if, still 
further, when I have added the element of devoutness toward 
the Good, the Beautiful and the True, (in devotion to which 
Eeligion and Ethics agree), I have shown that Eeligion stands 
wrapt in present adoration, in an unimpeachable experience of 
worshipfulness in present existence, while Ethics by equal 
necessity, points to the realization of the future, — then have I not 
shown a sphere of Eeligion in human experience which Ethics 
fills not. I think I have answered the question. At least, if 
my reasoning be true, it is answered; for then not one alone, 
whether it be Eeligion with its question toward the past, and 
finally with its worship which knows only the present moment, 
or Ethics with its primary insistance on present fidelity, but its 
ultimate pursuit of the conversion of the ideal into the actual, — 
not one of these alone, I say, but both are necessary to fill 
human life and answer its needs. 

I would divorce nothing, either in experience or life, but like 
Wordsworth, take life all together, and 

" wish ray days to be 
Bound each to each by natural piety." 



Note — The reader will reflect that in this sermon I have not 
tried or wished to define Eeligion, but only to treat it in one of 



EELIGION AND ETHICS. 21 

its aspects or qualities, or, more exactly, in so much of meaning 
or content as at least must be conceded to it by reason of its 
primary question of the Source of us, and then its step to vener- 
ation and awe of the Good, the Beautiful and the True as instant in 
Being, the Being and our Source being one. Indeed, to question 
of our Source is itself an act of reverence. Beyond this I go 
not in this sermon. See on this point the note to the preceding 
sermon, " What is Beligion? " 

If Religion be veneration and awe for the Good the Beauti- 
ful and the True, I affirm that Religion philosophically (which 
is to say, rationally) is not possible to a speculative pessimist, 
and Religion actually is not possible to an actual pessimist. 
But Ethics is possible to both. For Ethics is summed in three 
points: — 1. The primary absolute distinction between right and 
wrong, which is to say, the notion of duty as primary and 
elemental; 2. The duty of the individual to consider and judge 
carefully what is right and what is wrong; 3. The duty of the 
individual to act in accordance with his judgment, and to do 
what he believes to be right. Now, a pessimist may admit this 
Ethics. Philosophically he may admit it, for a universe which 
as matter of fact is bad, may not prevent an individual moral 
judgment against it, as is involved in the very affirmation that it 
is bad; and actually he may admit it, for a pessimist may live 
a good life and be an upright man. But Religion, I affirm, is 
not possible to a pessimist, because a bad universe can not excite 
love or veneration. Or to put it in other words, Religion is not 
conceivable in connection with despair. But Ethics is. For 
however bad the universe may be, an individual still may feel the 
duty to make the best of a bad thing and do what he can to make 
it as little evil as can be. It is true there seems some difficulty in 
such pessimistic judgment; for if the universe be bad in essence 
and a man good, he then must conceive himself as superior to 
the universe which has borne him, which is a strange thing. 
Or if the universe be good in essence, but inefficient and defective 
in power for the good, how happens it that the ideal and the 
power are not equal ? But these are difficulties which inhere in 
pessimism, and not in my interpretation of it as regards Reli- 
gion ; and they inhere in it because it is a false philosophy, con- 
trary to Religion, which is a true instinct or sentiment. 



DOING AND KNOWING. 
I. 

"If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the teaching." 
—John vii, 17. 

Long and often may we rejoice in this great saying of the 
Master. It is one of the two or three of his sayings which 
reach deepest down into the moral and spiritual life. 

The scene of it is at Jerusalem at one of the festivals, 
the Feast of Tabernacles. Jesus stood in the temple and 
taught. Many persons who listened, wondered, and said, "How 
knoweth this man letters, having never learned?" Which is to 
say, " How is this man able to expound aught, never having 
been taught by the Eabbins, and having no warrant from them? 
Jesus answered " My teaching is not mine, but his that sent 
me. If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the 
teaching, whether it be of God or whether I speak from 
myself." Which is to say, "I have not been taught by learned 
men, it is true, but I have a voice or teaching in my soul, from 
God ; and any man may have the same ; for whoever will do the 
will of God, therewith knows the things of God." Or thus I 
may express it, " Whoso wills to do the will of God, shall know 
what is the will of God;" which is to say, "Whoso loves the 
right with singleness of heart, soon shall know the right." 

This is a deep saying, nor ever has been said any deeper 
one concerning the moral center of the soul, that it is the abode 
of knowledge and the source of our ability to understand; in 
other words, that as the race is not to swift feet nor the battle to 
strong bodies, so knowledge is not to be obtained, like a stormed 
city, by mighty minds ; no, but he only whose heart and life is 



24 DOING AND KNOWING. 

right shall know things as truly they are. By right heart aftd 
right life is meant this, a single-hearted love for the truth and 
desire for it, and a conforming of the behaviour to it so soon or 
so far as it be found. 

This deep saying of the Master contains, then, the state- 
ment of the relation of morals to knowledge, and declares that 
knowledge rests on morals. 

Now, knowledge may be taken in two kinds — 

1. To know anything simply as a fact, that it is so and 
not otherwise. This I may call the religious form or manner of 
knowledge; for religion takes simply the fact as it is, and 
beholds the infinite power therein, and the eternal unfolding of 
it, with awe and faith. 

2. To know anything in its principles, causes, relations, 
classifications, to comprehend, analyse and describe it. This I 
may call the intellectual form or manner of knowledge, wherein 
not merely the soul takes it with reverence but the intellect 
seizes on it to explore it. 

Therefore, knowledge being of these two kinds, the Master's 
saying, which declares morals to be the root of knowledge, 
brings morals into relation with these two kinds of knowledge. 
This is to say that simple goodness (which the text calls the 
simple willing to do the will of God) underlies the religious 
apprehension of the facts which surround us, and also the 
intellectual comprehension of those facts. Or I may state it 
briefly thus — Simple faithfulness is the source of pure religious 
experience, and also of intellectual understanding. 

In this sermon I shall speak only of the first part, per- 
taining to religious experience ; in another, of the second part, 
the intellectual. 

Here then is my subject in this sermon, namely', the rela- 
tion of morals, that is, of simple dutifulness of heart and life, to 
religious experience. 

Of course this is a wide subject, and a philosophic or ab- 
stract and theoretical subject, if so one please to treat it. 
Starting from this point, I might set forth on any one of very 
many paths of thought. But my whole purpose now is to say 
one thing clearly, one very great and valuable truth, namely, 
that religious experience, whether in thinking or feeling, comes 



DOING AND KNOWING. 25 

to naught, and often is worse than naught, an excitement, a gross 
deception or a more gross self-deception, unless it be founded 
deep in moral earnestness and a pure heart. But when the 
moral center is sound, the will earnest, desire noble, we shall 
find the earth very good soil for us, and the natural growth of 
it will be religion in the soul, — religious thought and religious 
feeling too, noble, beautiful, and sincere together. 

Consider first the ease with which religious emotion may be 
excited. It is produced easily always. So easily indeed may a 
certain "religious emotion, even unto ecstasy or frenzy, be pro- 
duced, that very often, and I know not but commonly in 
assemblies, it rather is made and concocted by putting together 
and stirring up the materials of it, and roused thus by art into a 
kind of combustion, — rather thus it is made, I say, than springs 
up by nature, with the gentle and lovely fervor of nature's 
works in the soul. This is the profanity of revivals; and indeed 
I hold the revival meetings held by many churches and sects to 
be very profane; for the aim should not be to have them, but to 
need them not; and they should not be called the fruit of the 
Holy Spirit now, but the dire fermentations of the fruits of an 
evil spirit in the past loose and unholy days. Sad or profane 
is it thereupon to stir public heats of religious exultation, which 
flame up and go out, instead of hidden quietudes of penitence 
and resolve, which remain. And oh ! how lightly then, and pro- 
fanely, do they cast about from mouth to mouth the most hal- 
lowed thoughts, the most holy names, the most sacred experi- 
ences of the soul; which seems to me impious. We shall have 
indeed, as we must, our special seasons of feeling the love of 
God, says Theodore Parker, and "our several ways of expressing 
it." But "unhappy is the man or woman who tattles thereof, 
foaming at the mouth in some noisy conference, as in a village 
dog barks to dog; but blessed is he whose noiseless piety sweetens 
his daily toil, filling the house with the odor of that ointment; 
thrice blessed when it comes out in the character of the men 
whose holy lives, glistening with good deeds, adorn the land 
they also serve and heal and bless." Sometimes these sudden 
combustions of emotion as to religion do good, Parker avers, 
but commonly more evil. " Many thoughtful and moral men 
are disgusted with the folly and rant, and turn with contempt 



26 DOING AND KNOWING. 

from everything that bears the name of religion; and the most 
painful forms of infidelity and atheism are sure to come, — a lack 
of confidence in any higher law, in a creating Cause and pre- 
serving Providence that guides the world." Heats and wrang- 
ling flames of religion, he says again, sometimes rebuke certain 
vices and passions; and it is well, lacking a nobler way, that "by 
the iron knout of fear these should be scourged into subjection." 
" But alas ! " he says, " worse vices — the lust of money, of 
power, of distinction, the vices of old men, men of hard heads 
and stony hearts, spiritual pride, self-conceit, arrogance, bigotry, 
hate, — these are left in full strength." 

Keligious emotions, like all unpainful feelings, are pleasures, 
and these may become excessive luxury, indulgence, intoxi- 
cation. They yield a passing excitation, or a soothing which 
too often is but a blunting of the moral judgment. There 
appear natures to whom religious contemplation becomes like 
the idle luxury of a dream, fanned, as in the old Grecian idea of 
heaven, with western zephyrs of soft feeling and a delicious 
waiting upon half-born aspirations which die at once. By such 
flushes of feeling a pleasurable glow is spread over the body and 
soul, but promoting no high thoughts, nor ending in noble 
deeds. 

Moreover, our experience of nature and life, unless true 
moral earnestness unite therewith, tends subtly to arouse in- 
efficient emotion in religion. Joys, prosperities, sorrows, pain, 
evil, helplessness, weariness, overwork, the beauty, benevolence, 
power and grandeur of the Universe, conspire to evoke emotion. 
These, indeed, are wise and loving appeals to our religious 
nature. But unless the sense of right be alive in us and duty 
be mighty, these attractions and influences will cradle us but 
not glorify us. 

So easy is emotion in religion, so pleasurable, so feasible! 

But it is just contrariwise with the moral nature. This is 
not enticed forth; this is not a play and lapping of glowing emo- 
tions; this is not an easy run-forth of pleasure and exultation. 
Morality is exercise and drill. The moral force is resisted con- 
tinually, is fallen on, and not seldom overthrown, by passions, 
open or ambushed, by desires, ambitions, seductions, low 
standards in life, — a host of enemies and temptations; and 



DOING AND KNOWING. 27 

never the moral nature prevails without energy, often not with- 
out battle, — not seldom a conflict long and severe. Eight 
living indeed has been called immemorially a battle. "Gird ye to 
the battle," " Quit ye like men, be strong," " Put on the whole 
armcr of God," these are the precepts of the prophets. It is no 
little hard thing even to do no evil; yet this is but a poor virtue. 
But to do good, to sacrifice ourselves for mankind, to constrain 
ourselves for the world's sake, to live a laige domain of our lives 
for others, to bear much and keep^ a sweet cheer in the face and 
faith in the heart, to be poor and not be envious, to be neglected 
and not grow suspicious or bitter, to stand against ridicule, to 
inquire what we ought to live for, and go about life with earnest 
purpose to make beauty and love of it, and do this day by day, 
steadily, un swerved, for long years while reward is deferred and 
difficulties multiply and the long pressing weight of them grows 
very heavy — this is very hard indeed, this is a great battle. 
Therefore it is that moral greatness is so very great, because it 
is achieved against so much resistance; for then strength is the 
price of victory and still more strength the fruit of it. 

Even in the life of the body there seems to be somewhat 
like to this moral life which grows strong by resistance over- 
come. A great physician once grew very eloquent to me about 
the resistance which continually exercises the body and thereby 
makes it live. Observe, he said, that the forces of nature and 
our external conditions, when once life mysteriously springs in 
them, all seem hostile to life, and so foster it to lift and bear 
itself against resistance. How grows the power and compact- 
ness of the muscles of the arm? By no other way then by 
exercise, which is the tug of the muscle against a resistance. So 
grows all vital power whatever. A thousand destructive agents, 
mixed with the air and with food, compounded by the very pro- 
cesses of the body and by every appliance of social existence, con- 
tinually exercise physical life. Life thereon gains its very energy 
from the effort put forth in throwing off poisons. Life, said the 
physician, is inconceivable if there were naught for it to do to 
maintain itself. It is like a strong warrior, possible only when 
there are enemies. So grows it and so enlarges, till its natural 
cycle and course be run, and it stands atop of its career and of 
its force. Then begin the foes gradually to prevail. They 



28 DOING AND KNOWING. 

overcome the present shell of life, and wear it out. The soft 
death of old age results, and all is peace and passage. So is the 
moral life also. There are contesting poisons in its atmosphere 
by which it is exercised to grow. A moral life with naught to 
do to maintain itself, is inconceivable. But a host of appetites 
troop in to do it battle. Often the battle is hard; but the 
strength of every foe overcome passes into virtue of the will. 

Now is it not plain that this noble acquisition, this victory 
which is true moral character, must underly religious feeling if 
that be to be lifted and sanctified ? Without the moral conquest, 
what else can emotion be but indulgence, pleasure, sensation ? 
What right have we, or what dignity, to enter joys and hopes 
and trust which have no moral endeavor, no noble war of will, 
under them? If there be no devoutness of will, no moral 
earnestness, religious feeling is dissipation. 

Here, then, I find the first depth in the Master's words, "If 
ye will do the will of God, ye shall know of the teaching." The 
religious life rests, for its truthful uplift of feeling on the moral 
life ; because emotion in religion may come and go as easily as a 
chattering concourse of birds; but right living is a noble battle. 
The thought of God, and all the joy, hope, trust, faith, love, 
that therewith arise, are to be known as their true nature is, 
and entered into in very truth, only as we will to do the Holy 
and Eternal Will. 

The glory of the Universe of God is a holy glory. It is 
truth and truthfulness, right and righteousness. Glorious and 
beautiful are the heavens and the earth, "like a flag unfurled," 

" The splendor of the niorning sky 
And all the stars in company ! " 

But "my soul says, ' There is more than this! '" Beautiful are 
the shapes and colors of forest and field; but it is a holiness of 
beauty which " has pulled around itself the bark of every tree." 
God is seen in greatest glory in the faithfulness of his creatures. 
The love and obedience of a dog — that inextinguishable worship 
— has more glory in it than the Milky Way, and is a visibility of 
God more distinct than mountains. The murmurous invincible 
trust of a lion once gained by kindness, the appealing sorrow of 
a polar bear whose cub has been killed, are more sweet than the 



DOING AND KNOWING. 29 

rhythm of the sea, and an audibility of God more distinct than 
"the music of the spheres." And one deed of pure self-sacrifice, 
of moral warfare, in a man, affords us a greater beholding and 
hearing of God than all the poems of Bibles and all the 
geological " scriptures writ in stone." Says Fichte in his " Way 
to the Blessed Life," " God appears in what a good man does, 
lives and loves. No longer then is the Eternal encompassed by 
shadows nor hidden by a garment, but is visible in his own 
immediate life. We ask ' What is God ? ' and the question is 
unanswerable from empty and imaginary conceptions; but in 
the life of a good man the answer is given, ' God is that which a 
devout creature of his, thereby inspired by him, does.' " 

In a passage of singular beauty and elevation, John Weiss 
has the same great thought: "In a visit to scenes where gran- 
deur is clothed with charm, and all the elements of a perfect 
landscape appeal to all the senses, I must confess that I have 
been impressed with some moral attributes of humble persons, 
notwithstanding the importunities of Nature. There is a place 
where the mountains escape directly from the ocean, to lift the 
eye into a wide horizon ; yet they bare their bosoms to the surf, 
and flatter out of it fine rhythm for the ear. The slopes of old 
forests send down their green to compete with the waves. The 
caverns that have been gnawed out of the coast-line by the 
patience of thousands of years, attract the step away from the 
glens, where the shadows fall from old birches and needles of 
the pine. The paths that the ships make upon their various 
errands do not seduce the fancy to follow, any more than 
the tracks which the woodcutter has hewed through the 
wilderness of green. By both roads your delight travels 
from point to point through spaces that are inhabited by 
constant surprises; and your heart learns to soar like the 
eagles that hint good omens to you from the heights on 
which their instinct launches them. You sail in their com- 
pany, and are masters of the beauty of the land and sea. 
Their motion soothes your care, as the lapse of the mountain 
torrents that pass through you with murmur of forgetfulness 
of the heat of politics and all low things. Every nerve of your 
body learns in an instant to transmit such news as never flashes 
along the lines of the telegraph. And the gladness of your soul 



30 DOING AND KNOWING. 

is worship. For when the day is built upon a large scale, as it 
can be in regions where material enough is at hand to make a 
dozen landscapes, and more beauty than the whole dozen could 
afford, short of bankruptcy, the first and most jubilant thought 
of the mind is that God 'is making the world afresh for you, and 
has taken one of his splendid mornings to do it in, and is pro- 
nouncing through you that he finds it good. If your eyes fall 
before this frankness, and for relief you begin to pick the ground 
berries, they do not allay but stimulate your thirst for the sweet- 
ness of being at home with God, and you lift your face again 
with the whole lifting of the sea and the solemn mountains up to 
the divine countenance, to receive its morning kiss. It would 
be contemptible to undervalue such pure moments. But there 
is no treason in confessing that if one moral attribute come 
athwart such scenes, it throws them into shadow, and you are 
conscious that an invisible presence, a messenger of the love in 
which earth's grandeur was conceived, is passing by. 

So I thought, when a boy, who had never seen the inside of 
school or meeting-house, had never read Paley's or Wayland's 
ethics, and did not know how far he lived from Boston, 
described to me how the foxes and raccoons made a beaten path 
in the snow, from the winter- stricken mountains, directly 
through his father's garden down to the seaside, to go foraging 
for waifs and strays ; and that not one of the family ever thought 
of setting a trap in the way of their necessities, to make money 
out of their famine. What delicacy of the moral sense, nestled 
underneath that ragged jacket and that raggeder intelligence. 
The boy's father did not know enough to estimate the heights of 
the mountains where God's wild creatures lived, yet he had 
transmitted to his children the beauty of not taking advantage 
of a fox's hunger to stock his cottage with peltry. And my con- 
science rose to spring-tide with the conviction that the temple 
was not out of doors, but was underneath a jacket, and was 
not made with hands. Moral things are unobtrusive, and 
make as little noise as the light does in blushing on the 
mountain's forehead; but, like the light, they announce God's 
coming to take possession of the day." 



DOING AND KNOWING. 
II. 

"If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the teaching "—John, 
vii, 17. 

I resume the subject of moral life in relation to religious feel- 
ing, treated in my last sermon. 

I said, in that sermon, that emotion in religion is brought 
forth very easily; that therefore it runs the danger of being made 
by devices and excitements instead of being a natural slow and 
beautiful growth; that, contrariwise, moral worth, right living is 
difficult, a hard and long battle, a strenuous strife; and that there- 
fore goodness of life must go with, and even fore-go, emotion in 
religion, — the base and ground of the edification, the rock; on 
which founded, the temple will out-stand all storms and the daily 
hammering of time. This, I said, was one of the deep reasons 
why he that doeth the will of God is he who shall know the 
things of God ; because a kind of revel or abandonment in the 
thought of God, (ah! impious! a mournful thing!) is easy, and 
often verily a seduction ; but to do His Will is hard — a watch, 
an undertaking, a travail ; and the strong discipline of morals is 
the condition and means of true apprehension of God and of 
health of feeling in religion. Without this, emotion is but va- 
pors, even perhaps unholy fumes in riotous company. 

I come now to another great depth of this deep teaching ©f 
the Master. 

There is a great law of our constitutions which expresses the 
dependence of the religious on the moral. That law is the law 
governing all active exertion on the one hand, and all passive 
emotion on the other hand. I may call it the law of passivity 
and activity. The law is this, that in emotions we are passive, 



32 DOING AND KNOWING. 

being merely acted on, subjected to impressions, affected by pass- 
ing conditions or circumstances; that, contrariwise, in any ex- 
ercise of the will we are active, acting on others or on conditions, 
producing impressions on others or on circumstances; that all 
emotions, because we are only passive objects of them, tend to 
decrease in power by repetition, so that the more they prevail the 
weaker they grow, and therefore the less tending to come vigor- 
ously into consciousness; that, contrariwise, all exercises of will, 
because in them we are not objects of impressions but active 
agents, tend to increase in power by repetition, so that the more 
they are transacted the stronger they grow, and tend the more 
to assert themselves in action and to be repeated. This is the 
law of passivity and activity. To state it briefly, emotions, as 
being passive impressions, fade and weaken by repetition ; but 
active exercise of will strengthens by repetition. Both passive 
affections and active efforts, emotion and volition, feeling and 
willing, become habits by repetition of them; but just in propor- 
tion as we drift into a feeling by habit, it is listless, flaccid, ceases 
to be a great and strong feeling; but, contrariwise, when acts of 
will become habits, it is because they have grown so strong by exer- 
cise that they run over oppositions like a tide and are put forth 
almost unconscious of any resistance, although at first the resist- 
ance taxed the strength. In brief, passive habits are weakness, 
but active habits are strength; in other words, emotions that 
become habits, do so because the emotion weakens ; but exercises 
that become habits, do so because the will strengthens. 

This law pertaining to active effort and passive affections, 
takes a very benevolent part in Providence, preventing much 
pain. There are persons, like physicians, nurses, charity agents, 
who are called, by a sympathetic nature or by professional duty, 
to be familiar with scenes of suffering. The emotions of sym- 
pathy, pity, horror, aroused in such scenes may be exceeding 
painful. They may amount to a piercing distress, a torment of 
memory, a shock and horror which fill the mind, seize the im- 
agination, and become harrowing sympathies continually arising. 
Very like such a person is prompted at first to seek out and re- 
lieve the sufferer by his own sympathetic distress. This distress 
may be so great that he has no harder task than to witness the 
suffering during his efforts to relieve it. What if these emotions 



DOING AND KNOWING. 33 

of pity and horror relaxed never, never weakened, but always 
continued to be strong torments? Who then could endure a life 
passed in these benevolent professions or in works of mercy? 
Or if, by love and self-sacrifice, one clung to the work, what a 
terrible life-long martyrdom, in which so severe an anguish 
should be repeated with every act of duty ! But now comes this 
law of the passive affections and the active powers, to work a 
most merciful benefit. The pangs of sympathetic pity, horror, 
terror, are passive affections. Therefore the sympathetic suffer- 
ing of those who minister to pain and wretchedness gradually ex- 
tinguishes itself. With every repetition of the brave duty, the 
painful emotions attending it grow less. But is this a hardening 
of heart? No. It would be so, and the whole nature become 
callous and dense, but for the other side of the law, which works 
in the active powers. When the fellow-feeling of pain, the sym- 
pathetic distress, which is a potent excitement to merciful oc- 
cupations and hard labors, should grow weak by experience of it, 
what would become of the helpless sufferers and who would be 
moved to toil for their relief, if the active exertions of relief were 
not confirmed and established by repetition in proportion as the 
sympathetic pain is weakened ? But it is confirmed, and becomes 
a noble habit. Thus the law provides that human suffering shall 
be ministered to and relieved, but with less and less distress to 
the faithful workers among the wretched; so that a charitable or 
professional laborer amid diseases and distresses is eased of 
severe pangs of sympathetic misery, but is confirmed in his labor 
to relieve the wretchedness. With every new deed of merciful duty, 
the suffering of sympathy grows less, and more tolerable, but the 
habit and power of will to do the benefit grows more confirmed 
and imperious. Ever more and more the benevolent worker is 
spared suffering, and the active habit of succoring distress takes 
the place of painful pity in defending the sufferer from neglect. 
Now if this law of the passive affections and the active powers 
be understood, we will apply it to the relations of the moral 
nature and the religious nature. Religious feeling is a passive 
affection, a succession of emotions, perhaps excitements, fer- 
vencies, agitations, ecstasies, in which the soul puts forth no 
effort. We have no part in these excited states or emotions but 
sufferance or consciousness of them. According to the law of 



34 DOING AND KNOWING. 

passive affections, therefore, these feelings, fervors, desires, being 
unfollowed by action or labor, are weakened with every repetition 
of them, every self-surrender to them. But when they take out- 
ward shape in forms, expressive actions, attendance on assemblies, 
practice of observances, and many acts by which religious emo- 
tions seek to impart and enforce themselves, these are acts of 
will, of intention and decision, and therefore, according to the 
law of the active powers, are confirmed and compacted by every 
exercise of them. Every repetition, therefore, of emotions in re- 
ligion, with accompanying actions or observances, tends to a 
weakening of the spirit and a confirming or solidifying of the 
form or observance, just as every instance of the physician's 
duty tends to a weakening of his feeling for the sufferer but a 
confirming of his exertions to relieve the suffering. But the 
desirableness of the effects in the two cases, is very different. It 
is well, and to be desired thankfully, that the physician should 
wane and attenuate in his inward sensitiveness to misery, while 
his outward tendency to relieve it is confirmed and enlarged in 
the same degree. But, all contrariwise, in religious experience, 
it is the force and purity of the feeling which is precious and to 
be preserved by every means, while the outward acts or forms in 
which the emotion utters itself are the unimportant, transient 
and changeable part which ought not to be emphasized in com- 
parison. Yet it is just this external and unimportant part which is 
confirmed and set forward, by violence of emotions in religion 
and by frequent excitation of them, while the inward fact, the 
spirit, life, truth, earnest and deep feeling, wanes in the same 
measure. The law is very simple. By repetition, the emotion, 
which is the passive affection, is weakened, the form or expression, 
which is the active exercise, is confirmed. 

Hence revivals, gotten up to act like stimulants on flagging 
and flaccid emotions. Hence also dead forms, which once were 
the expansion of living and truthful feeling, but now have become 
lifeless practices, like mummies, once bodies of life, now equally 
bodies, but embalmed in the preservatives and shrouds of habit. 

Such is the sure tendency and fate of resort to emotion in re- 
ligion by itself and as something to be sought in itself. The 
inefficient observances or forms will become habit, the life grad- 
ually wane and fade away, leaving behind it a dim memory which 
often becomes superstition. 



DOING AND KNOWING. 35 

But now look at this same law as it has effect in moral ex- 
perience. We shall find that morality, by this law, fares other- 
wise than religious emotions and forms, indeed just contrariwise. 
The moral experience is like to the religious expression in this, 
that there are two parts to it, the part of feeling and the part of 
action. But they differ in the relative value of the parts which 
are confirmed by exercise; for in religious emotions and expres- 
sion of them, it is the unimportant part, the form, which grows 
into consequence and power, but in moral experience, it is the 
important part. A moral experience includes an emotion or 
impulse or reverence unto the right; perhaps at the same mo- 
ment there is also a strong desire unto the wrong; then there is 
inward struggle. That is the emotional part, the part of passive 
affection, in which the mind simply is conscious of emotions 
seizing on it. On that follows the deed, the coming of emotion 
into outward form and sensible existence, a right deed or a wrong 
deed, according to the nature of the inward emotion which has 
prevailed, whether the reverence for the right or the desire for 
the wrong. That is the active part, in which the will has exer- 
cise and domain. In every moral experience, these two parts, 
the passive part and the active part, are combined. Now, it is 
true that in every instance of moral experience, the passive affec- 
tion, which is the conscious impulse or desire unto some especial 
righteousness, whatever it be, is weakened as an emotion, by the 
recurrence of it; but in the same moment and measure the out- 
ward moral act is confirmed and established by every repetition 
of it ; and when the moral act is one of faithfulness and right, 
the habit of that excellence grows in the same measure as the 
conscious emotion unto it declines. Wherefore, in the domain 
of good and steadfast moral action we behold this divine beauty, 
namely, that intensity of loyalty and longing unto the right and 
good, if diminished by recurrence of those feelings, is diminished 
only in proportion as the right and good are realized and put 
forth in action . The longing to be and do right, in the healthy 
conscience, ceases as a conscious motive, — as an expenditure of 
force, shall I say? — but only to be stored up as reserved power 
and confirmed action in the whole being, an efficient and un- 
thwarted streaming of the being to the right and good, even deep 
below the surface of consciousness, This is the highest concep- 



36 DOING AND KNOWING. 

tion of moral force, the doing of good but knowing it not ; know- 
ing it not because then we are acting out not a desire or emotion, 
but the emotion transformed into a habit of action, which is to 
say, into a deep stream of will, a settled and vital nature. This 
is the exact opposite of the result of emotion and the expression 
thereof in religion sought for themselves and in themselves ; they 
forever are translating the inward into the outward, the feeling, 
or life, into the form; but moral faithfulness forever is translat- 
ing the outward into the inward, the action into very power and 
being. 

But now you will say to me perhaps, Must all emotion fade 
by its own exercise ? Must religious feeling, once called forth, 
weaken and decline thereafter with the recurrence of it? Are 
we doomed thus to have our most exalted feelings, our noblest 
raptures, grow apathetic, lifeless, inefficient, by our very exper- 
ience of them ? Is to feel them the same thing as to begin to 
feel them not? And is it so, too, with human love ? Must its 
joy and rapture run a fatal course toward indifference? Must 
the path of all feeling be a downward grade to impassiveness? 

Yes, if unaccompanied by moral action ; but if associated with 
ethical activity, no! 

Here comes to view another strange and beautiful fact or law 
within us, to wit: Painful feelings that come of love, the dis- 
tresses of sympathy, tend to wane by exercise and repetition of 
them, whereby we are spared suffering, while the charitable active 
faithfulness, confirmed to a strong habit, takes the place of the 
sympathetic distress as a motive power for the relief of the un- 
happy. But the joys of love, which are trust, hope, tenderness, 
gratefulness, are fed, not replaced, by moral action. In all ways 
the sweetness and richness of love is more and better by reason of 
good deeds of love done and grown into a habit of inventing and 
applying benefits to our beloved. The divine joyful feelings of 
love die not nor wane by immersion of us in them unless uncon- 
nected with active service. But then they wane and perish surely. 
I am persuaded that very much of the most sad sorrows and 
pains in the world come from the ignorance of all kinds of lovers, 
or else their thoughtlessness, or else an indolent quality of love 
(if then it can be called love), by all which reasons the love be- 
gins and ends in emotions, in ecstasies, in soft suffusions of 



DOING AND KNOWING. 37 

feeling. 'Tis certain, by the law ruling in all passive affections, 
that these will wane by exhaustion if there be no source of sup- 
ply and invigoration of them beyond the mere effusion and 
swelling of themselves. Hence those loves that begin and end 
in the passage through the soul of soft emotions, glowings, 
ardors, flushes of feeling, will wane, and burn down to ashes by 
inexorable law. It is only active service of one's beloved, energy 
in considering, procuring and applying help, weal, profit, benefit 
and blessings in love's behalf, that can feed and support the 
delicate and beautiful raptures of affection. Let all who live to- 
gether in houses beware ! 

So it is with religious feeling. Of itself it will wane, waste 
and wither under recurrence; the law is upon it. But it is fed 
by moral energy. "If ye love me, ye will keep my command- 
ments," said Jesus; but conversely it is true — "If ye keep my 
commandments, ye shall be able to love me." Love of God 
will dry and perish if it drink not of the spring of obedience to 
God. The grace, fervor, truth of the inward love, especially its 
continuance as a sublime power at need, can be maintained only 
by the force and sincerity of outward action. And for this great 
office, to be the well-spring of the joy and rapture of feeling which 
else would wane by its own exercise, — for this office moral energy 
is sufficient. For not only is moral power noble in all instances, 
but it may grow from more to more continually, and be ever the 
increasing source of a more glorious emotion. For always there 
will be work enough to tax the will. How strong soever it grow 
by victories won and heights climbed, always there will be new 
"holy wars" to be waged, always new heights to be attained of 
virtue, power and knowledge. 

Here then we behold again a depth in the Master's words, "If 
any man willeth to do the will of God, he shall know of the teach- 
ing." Eeligious feeling, and therewith knowledge, unto the 
being of God, his glory in the out-world, his light in the soul, 
his presence in both, is to be kept in health and strength, yea, 
in life, only by moral action. To will to do the Eternal and All- 
holy Will is the one way unto knowledge of the Eternal and 
Infinite Love. We shall call unto Duty with a strong voice ; yea, 
weary with the "unchartered freedom" of emotions, call with 
vehement voice, and say with the poet, — 



38 DOING AND KNOWING. 

"Through no disturbance of my soul, 

Or strong compunction in me wrought 

I supplicate, for thy control ; 

But in the quietness of thought :' 

Me this unchartered freedom tires ; 

1 feel the weight of chance desires : 

My hopes no more must change their name, 

I long for a repose that ever is the same. 

Stern Lawgiver ! yet thou dost wear 

The Godhead's most benignant grace ; 

Nor know we anything so fair 

As is the smile upon thy face ; 

Flowers laugh before thee on their beds, 

And fragrance in thy footing treads ; 

Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong ; 

And the most ancient heavens through thee are strong. 



DOING AND KNOWING. 
Ill 

"If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the teaching." 

John vii. 17. 

In two foregoing sermons I have spoken from this deep say- 
ing of the Master. 

In the first discourse I spoke of the easiness of religious 
emotion, and, contrariwise, the hard exercise of daily goodness 
of life; consequently, the dangers and delusions of emotion 
unless " encamped about" with moral vigor and action. 

In the second discourse I spoke of the diminishing and van- 
ishing of emotions, if they be repeated often, by reason of the 
law of our nature that passive affections fade under frequent 
recurrence of them, while active exercise of will settles into 
strength by repetition of it, and becomes a habit of power; con- 
sequently, the impossibility of maintaining emotions, religious 
or other, in strength and beauty, without an attendant action of 
will putting them forth into service and virtue. 

I will go on now, in this sermon, to a third force or depth in 
the Master's saying. 

The great truth is that it is by goodness of act that we shall 
have abundant and clear knowledge. Or say it thus, To do 
rightly is the way to know correctly. Or in these words, To see 
things as truly they are, comes by moral virtue more than by 
force of intellect. Or again thus, Nobleness of life in the soul is 
the condition of wide scope of understanding. Or thus, True 
knowledge is an ethical achievement, not intellectual. Or, best 
of all, as Jesus put it simply, " He that wills to do His will 
shall know"; and elsewhere, " The pure in heart shall see God." 

This deep truth rests on the principle that we can know only 



40 DOING AND KNOWING. 

those things which we are like unto, and can have understand- 
ing only of what we share in our own nature. If a man have a 
small measure of harmony in him, then can he know but that 
little of music; and if he have so small portion as not even to 
perceive any sounds, but is deaf, then he can know naught of 
music. So of light, and of all things that pertain to the senses. 
Likewise equally of love and truth and beauty and thankful- 
ness, and all things that pertain to the spirit. Only if we be lov- 
ing shall we see love in Nature and among men. In like manner 
we must be like God in order to know the things that come of 
God. But all things come of God, all things have their place 
and power and subjection and permission in his Providence, all 
things are made in his Life, Presence and Overruling, " and 
without him was nothing made that was made." Therefore if 
we must be like God in order to understand the things that 
come of God, we must be like him in order to understand any- 
thing and know anything as truly it is. 

Goodness, justice, truthfulness, devotion, sincerity, self-con- 
trol, faithfulness, honesty, righteousness, — I will gather all 
these into one term, namely, i leality. By ideality I mean the 
pursuit of high things, the good, the beautiful and the true, 
without thougJ t of reutartL For if you will look at each of these 
virtues, you will see that it cannot exist at all except purely and 
without mixture of anything with it. If justice be done for a 
reward, it is not justice but craft; if one tell the truth for an 
advantage, then the truth-telling is not truthfulness, but a bar- 
ter; if one be devoted to a person or cause for guerdon, it is not 
devotion but shrewdness; if one be sincere for an end, it is not 
sincerity but subtlety; if one be honest for policy, it is not 
honesty but strategy. So that it is plain that all these virtues 
are but the many forms of purity of heart, and will bear to be 
naught else; but with any mixture they cease to be. Divine 
singleness of nature is common to them all, and is the being of 
them. Therefore I may gather all these virtues, as I have said, 
under one name, which is ideality; because ideality is the fol- 
lowing after spiritual things without thought of any other 
reward by them, or for anything but their own grace and 
divinity. 

Now, let us suppose the Universe to be framed on this 



DOING AND KNOWING. 41 

ideality, and builded on it; suppose creation to come forth from 
virtue, from pure and simple holiness, as itself the one life and 
reward, the source, aim, end and recompense in one, all else 
merely secondary and by the way, and not much to be labored for by 
the way, and the ideal never to be given up for anything because 
holiness in itself is divine, and enough, and all; so that if there 
be pains and privations fallen on the good, 'tis no overthrow of 
faith or of courage, because to be good is the supreme reward of 
the good, and having this crown we can " both hope and quietly 
wait"; suppose this to be so, and that Creation so hath come 
forth and so is builded, how can this be seen, known and felt 
by one who has not that ideality, but is seeking the rewards, 
and doing right only for what may come of it to him? 

Now, such truly is the Universe. And who can tell what a 
stranger in a strange land the seeker of rewards must be ? He 
is homeless, not because he is away from his home, but because 
no place is his home. For it is not this or that place which is 
strange to him, but all the creation of God is to him a strange 
country, being made and framed in one manner and he in 
another manner all contrary to it; creation a breaking forth 
from the Supreme, Perfect, Ideal, Holy, for the unfolding of 
itself in beauty; and he no more than a runner after rewards, a 
seeker after gains. 

Surely, now, it is plain that any one whose aims are low, sel- 
fish, individual, who in every act is thinking what payment he 
shall make out of it or what advantage it shall become to him, 
can not undei stand truly a universe framed so differently, and 
in a way that so is opposed to him and against him. He will 
not judge well; he will not see things as truly they are and in 
their real order; because he is not like them, but made as if of 
another creation that has no part in this one. It is certain that 
he must be ignorant. If he pile up all arts, letters, learning, 
still he will be ignorant. If he amass all sciences and philoso- 
phies, still he will be ignorant. If he know all affairs, powers, 
principalities, revenues, commerce, governments, still he will be 
ignorant. For he will know all things only as they appear to 
him, and they will seem to him to be dispensers of rewards and 
servants of advantage. He cannot see them as truly they 
are, because they are singing and praising and serving goodness, 



42 DOING AND KNOWING. 

beauty and truth for the pure divinity of them. I say that one 
can not understand the whirling of the spheres, their dance be- 
fore the Lord, who knows not tl that gravitation is identical 
with purity of heart." In a good universe it is only the good 
man that can have knowledge of it, and see truly how the parts 
and members in it agree, and mingle, and act one on another, 
and act all together. The bad man could be wise and knowing, 
and see things as truly they were, only in a bad universe, like 
to himself. Only the soul that loves the truth devoutly and for 
itself, and will not sell it, but cleaves to it and bears witness to 
it, though it " find him poor at first and keep him so;" that can 
find a joy in high thoughts, spiritual visions, great humane 
hopes; that can sacrifice and meet loss for such things; that 
lives with ideality, believes in the might of simple truth and 
beauty, and asks not to be rewarded but purely rejoices to adore 
and to serve, — only this soul can know well the things and laws 
and powers of this universe which is of God. This is the 
Master's saying, that 'tis he who wills to do the will of God 
that shall know of the teaching. 

Now if a man live not with high thoughts for their own sake, 
not with the idealities of things, but with questions of advan- 
tage to himself, judging things not by their nature, ideally, but 
by the praise or fashion of the time, or by what gain or repute 
he can make of them, I say he will be ignorant of the truth of 
things. This he must be, because creation is framed not so, but 
builded all contrary to him, on the eternal divinity of the good, 
the beautiful and the true. Thereupon his ignorance will have 
effect in two ways: 

First, he will misjudge the individual things and persons 
which come in his way and encompass him. He will not know 
what simplicity is, but call it somewhat else, perhaps dulness or 
folly or affectation. If there be a noble cause struggling 
against apathy, ease, caste, he will not know it to be noble, but 
call it infatuate or seditious. He will not know devotion, self- 
sacrifice, singleness of motive if he meet' it, but will conceive 
some current of self-interest or plots under the surface and will 
go far astray looking for them. He will not know the goodness 
of any good thing that not yet has grown strong to drag a large 
company after it. Thus he will miss the best things because he 



DOING AND KNOWING. 43 

will not know tbem, and continually will misjudge and cry 
" crucify " where be ought to trust and love. 

Secondly, he will know naught of Providence. May not such 
ignorance as now I speak of, be one great reason of unrest and 
faultfinding with Providence. I hear very much said about the 
problems of life because of the inequalities of it. Some are so 
rich and some so poor; and many are rich with little work, and 
many are poor though they labor hard. Some persons have lives 
of rich rewards and honey-dew to the end; some begin in hard- 
ship or loneliness and never straighten the back from its burden 
till they and their loads fall together. "The distribution of the 
good things of life." it is said, is all awry, unequal, inconsiderate, 
sorrowful and painful. 

Now who can deny that there are injustices, puzzling oppress- 
ions, hard conditions, wrongs, which we are to work at and set 
right ? But, to the idealist, are these things problems of Prov- 
idence ? Are the present distributions of rewards to be cast as 
reproaches on the holy order of Creation ? Blots on the love of 
God ? Who can think such a thing, if he live in the plane of 
the ideal ? For in this plane, what are rewards ? They are but 
the things by the way, which ue must learn to undertake and do 
wisely withal, and spread abroad justly and kindly. But they 
are not the offices and recompense of God, neither to be consid- 
ered in the divine endowment of us ; for goodness and truth and 
beauty are their own recompense, and they admit not any taint 
of any reward for them, or any other glory and greatness beside 
themselves. Therefore what if the distribution of pleasant things 
be yet deficient and unequal on this earth ? What has this to 
do with holy Providence? Let vs look to it, becoming just and 
loving, and learning better to equalize conditions. But in the 
presence and love of God, there is no apportioning of rewards 
unto the good, the beautiful and the true; but the recompense 
of beauty is the greatness of the beauty thereof, and of goodness 
the goodness, and of truth the truth, and the power of them to 
confer knowledge and to enlighten the eyes to see things as truly 
they are, and therein to see God. Therefore it is only one, I 
think, who squanders and wrecks his soul upon rewards, that 
will complain of Providence. Says a high and solemn teacher: 

"The life of the called is not a happy life, if happiness con- 



44 DOING AND KNOWING. 

sists in selfish enjoyment; nevertheless it is a blessed life, if 
blessedness consists in consciously filling a place in the army of 
the faithful, and the fellowship of that spirit which animates all 
the brave and good. The limits of enjoyment are soon reached, 
the season of enjoyment is soon, past; but life and blessedness 
have no bounds. The time is near when the having possessed a 
little more or a little less of this world's goods, the having ex- 
perienced a little more or a little less of earthly delights, will be 
no longer matter of pleasure or regret. But the consciousness of 
having paid with our best for values received, of having borne 
our share of the common burden, and contributed something to 
the general good, will be rich compensation in view of all the 
past, and ample support in view of all the future ; will be a sat- 
isfaction which we can take with us to our final rest, assured that 
the sundering of soul and body cannot wrest this treasure from 
our life, and that wherever in the Divine economy our waking 
may be, it will find us sound and famished and girt and ready 
for the new career."* 

So far I have spoken of the holiness of God. Now also we 
have the love of God to think of. This too we must be like, if 
we will know the things that come of him. 

God is not and lives not for himself, but to give himself. 
Deeply and well sang the ancient poet. "In the beginning God 
created the heavens and the earth." In the beginning. He cjuld 
not be alone. In the beginning it was so ; from eternity it was 
so. Not for himself or with himself or alone could he be, but 
for the bringing forth of creation and his creatures, for joy and 
goodness to them, and perfecting of them. This is love. 

Now, if in truth the Universe be framed on this nature and 
purpose; if verily creation come forth from this virtue and 
be builded on this nature and accord in all things with this 
purpose, of living not for oneself but for others, and each for all 
in love ; if indeed this be so, how then is it possible that one who 
is selfish and unloving can know the things of creation as truly 
they are ? 

Now, such truly is the Universe, a creation of love, eternal love, 
almighty and inevitable love. And who can tell what a stranger in a 
strange land the unloving and selfish person must be *? He must 

*Dr. Frederick H. Hedge, in "Sermons," 



DOING AND KNOWING. 45 

be ignorant, like a man cast on a foreign shore or dropped 
through the sky from one world to another where even the 
structure of the body and the parts and gestures are unlike 
to his own. If he collect all knowledges, arts, influences, strate- 
gies, still he will be ignorant. If he be skilled in all tools, in- 
struments, computations, still he will be ignorant. No matter 
what learning or cunning of head or hand he iias, lacking love 
and void of the devotion of himself unto others, he will be ignor- 
ant, he can not know the nature of the things that are about 
him. In Paul's great song-chapter, 'tis so he exalts the wisdom 
which is love, — "If I speak with tongues of men and of angels, 
and if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and 
all knowledge, and if I have faith so as to remove mountains, 
but have not love, I am nothing." In the Universe of Him who 
could not be alone, whose name is Love, the creation builded in 
the image of service and of devotion, of the affectionate going 
forth of one member unto another and of God unto all, the man 
whose look is turned on himself in most, unloving unto others, 
is unlike to the frame of creation, and he can not know it. Only 
the soul which is a wide and tender fellowship, which hath a 
great love for men, which is moved by the sight of the creatures 
of the earth, which turns unto others with benefits and consola- 
tion, and gives not of substance only but itself, which rejoices 
deeply in all welfare of men and creatures and labors for it, to 
spare pain and make joy, — only this soul can know well the 
things and laws and powers of this Universe of love, which is of 
God who could not be alone. This is the Master's saying, that 
'tis he who wills to do the will of God that shall know of the 
teaching. 

Now, if a man be turned only to himself, unloving, selfish, not 
thinking of others' good, to spend himself for them, but of his 
own advaniage, to save himself for himself, and thus he be 
ignorant of the truth of things, as he must be, because creation 
is framed not so, but all contrary to him, then, as before we ob- 
served in the man whose soul is bent and bowed down to rewards, 
his ignorance will have effect in two ways: 

First, he will not know the individual things and creatures 
which come in his way; he will not conceive their nature as it is. 

The good and sweet things of life and earth are rolling forth 



46 DOING AND KNOWING. 

continually, like clouds from a full-dewy air. Sleep and waking, 
the "fiery oes" of night, the blue and silver sky of day and the 
opening of the door of the furnace of the sun, strength of limb, 
deep inhalations, quick senses and the foods of them, delicious 
sounds of water — rain, brook, sea — of aeolian murmurs over tree- 
tops, of carolings of airy feathered throats, the "hum of bees" 
and noon-tide drone of insects, "the lowing herd," the halloo of 
children, the music of pipes and song; lovely sights and scenes, 
land vistas, water vistas, mountains, colors, shadows, fair out- 
lines, graceful shapes, pictures, splendors of light and of contrast; 
comforts and good pleasures of body, shelter, fire, lavatories, 
tables, grains all wholesome and delicate, fruits of radiant bloom 
and vivacious juices, wine and oil and milk and honey, — all these 
roll forth and come to us unceasingly. But who can know 
them, being unloving ? For these are God's love. One is ignorant 
of them who is turned unto himself, for these are God's turning 
of himself unto all creatures. How should he who is unloving 
and turned unto himself know truly, as they are, the things which 
are the eternal effluence of love? He can not. He will not see 
their nature nor hear their language, nor know how they agree 
and work together, nor how they relate unto his own body and 
soul; nor will he awake to the thanksgiving which belongs with 
them ; because he is unloving unto others and thinking of him- 
self. 

But not only these good and delicious things of earth, but also 
admirable creatures and beautiful persons surround him, like a 
rich company in a garden. Among them good deeds and kind 
affections go back and forth like carrier doves, and even they are 
offered unto him. But he will not know love when he beholds 
it. He can not. He has not the figure of it in himself. He 
will not know it, but call it somewhat else, perhaps self-interest 
or fatuity or fond folly. Therefore the nature and exaltation of 
persons will pass him by unknown ; because, though he have wit 
like Jove, he has not heart as a child. He will not know life as 
truly it is, nor the hearts of men as they are. 

Secondly, he will know naught of Providence. For consider. 
Amid all the strains and clamors of life, the pains, losses, wishes, 
inequalities of which before I spoke, a very vast portion of 
Providence turns on the supports and joys of human love. This 



DOING AND KNOWING. 47 

element is so great that it overturns all appearances, and 
cries out to us to move cautiously in judgment. For no gild- 
ing or fine hangings show where the true riches are ; but in a 
palace there may be the most wretched poverty with groanings 
that can not be uttered, and in the small hut a most rich con- 
tent, an affluence of life ; because love is not in the mansion, but 
is in the bare little dwelling. Let anxieties and labors, priva- 
tions and small portions, humble estate and poverty, pelt as they 
may, and pile like hail stones where they have fallen, and 
yet all these may be overborne, and made as but manly trials, 
and lightened till their weight has fled into the sky, by love and 
a dear companionship and precious sharing together of souls 
that are one. Therefore who can say how ignorant of Providence 
and how little knowing of the resources and ways of God with 
human hearts is the man who has not love in himself, nor knows 
in himself the sweetness of turning devoutly unto another in love, 
nor that other sweetness of being turned unto with trust and 
love ? He can not know the things of the Providence of God. 
The light of the ways of God with men must be darkness unto 
him; because he is blinded to the vast sum of joys and the sup- 
ports of soul which arise in the love of men. This is the Master's 
saying, that 'tis he who wills to do the will of God that shall 
know the teaching; or thus, 'Tis only he that hath become like 
unto God, and so far as he is like, that shall know the ways of 
God. This is another deep and great meaning in this deep say- 
ing of the Master. 

Is it any wonder that Providence so much is complained of 
among men and such reproach thrown on the love of God ? For 
how can his ways be seen or creation be known as truly it is, 
by one who is bent and bowed unto rewards, seeing that crea- 
tion rests on pure beauty and goodness for themselves; or by one 
who is unloving and turned all to himself, seeing that creation 
is effluent from love and is the turning of God unto all creatures 
and the coming forth of creatures for him who could not be alone? 

An old writer says that we may have an ear for music "with- 
out being able to perform in any kind, we may judge well of 
poetry, without being poets" to write it; but we can have no 
notion of goodness without being good. 



DOING AND KNOWING 
IV. 

,; If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching."— John 
vii, 17. 

The great general truth is that a good life quickens the 
understanding; a noble morality enlarges the intelligence. 

This is a divine truth. It is a sight of the being of God, the 
eternal Holiness. 

I have spoken of this truth in three foregoing sermons: 

First, I tried to set forth the need of moral life to mental 
life, in that moral faithfulness is a strenuous exercise, whereas 
impulse or emotion is easy ; and religious experience if unguard- 
ed by moral action falls therefore to indulgence or weakness. 

Secondly, I sought to show the dependence of mental im- 
pulses or emotions on moral action by the law that active exer- 
cise of will intrenches itself in habit and gathers power to itself, 
whereas passive affections tend to fade and will grow weak by 
repetition, unless reinforced by moral earnestness, which is 
action. 

Thirdly, I endeavored to express the great truth, the search- 
ing truth, that without a noble morality there can be no true 
knowledge or wisdom, because things can be known by us as 
truly they are only in measure as we are akin to them and like 
them; and all things come of God, the Eternal Holiness, and can 
be known by us as truly they are, only in measure as we are like 
to the goodness from which they spring, which is in them. 

It is not to be overlooked how the good and great, the 
spiritual, the prophetic, agree in this truth, that, as the race is 
not to the swift, so true knowledge is not to the bright, the witty, 
the keen, the mighty in speech. Isaiah proclaimed the word of 



50 DOING AND KNOWING. 

the Lord, the command to repent and to live nobly, the while he 
looked forward to a great dispensation of the favor of the Lord, 
a mighty prince, a Messiah, who should redeem all and set the 
kingdom of Irsael on everlasting pillars. Jesus likewise called 
to sincere and spiritual life, to high motives and noble behavior 
therewith; but he taught (at least, so I read through the mazes 
of conflicting expressions in the gospels on this point) that no 
temporal king, no crowned or war-like Messiah, was to be looked 
for, but only a Messianic Spirituality, or if a person, only a 
spiritual prophet and teacher; and that not in the future is the 
spirit of the Lord to be sought, and never to be waited for as if 
to come by and by, but that always "now is the accepted time." 
Socrates likewise dwelt on morality in daily life, but he taught 
as a philosopher, sifted things with his logic and laid stress on the 
value of clear ideas. But all of these three so different in speech 
and method, have one point in common, that, namely, they 
ascribe their greatest and best knowledge, not first or most to 
arduous thinking, but to some inward or moral condition of them 
which opened the mind to divine light. We shall not do well to 
put aside such an agreeing mind among the great, the good, the 
prophetic, and think it an error in itself and the agreement a 
mere hap. We shall be wise if we think it a spiritual truth, to 
which a high and noble life has led these seers. We ought to con- 
ceive that in this agreement of noble souls, saying that their 
knowledge and insight is given them directly in a manner, through 
their spiritual natures, — in this, I say, we ought to conceive that 
we are beholding the truth of the power of reason, that it is a moral 
and spiritual power. Insight of mind is moral divination. 
True and high knowledge, which is the seeing of things as truly 
they are in the divine order, grows from a high, glorious, pure 
life of the soul, and from a noble behavior. 

The Master says, "He that wills to do the will of God, shall 
know." That we may take one more step into the center of these 
living words, I will ask the question, "What is life? And differs 
it in any way from Existence ? And in what way ? 

Now, this may be indeed a question of the most deep philos- 
ophy. No question can be asked which will take us at one flight 
into rarer realms of reasoning, of observing, conceiving, than this 
question, "What is Life?" But it is not in such a way that I 



DOING AND KNOWING. 51 

ask it now. I go not with it to abstract realms, to speculative 
thoughts. I take the question simply and practically. I will go 
with it to the simple facts of common experience and daily ob- 
servation. By these I will seek to picture Life; not to define it 
by its source or arising or its nature in itself, but only to show it 
by the appearance and quality it wears to our senses continually. 

Now, to our common sight, no ideas are to be distinguished 
more carefully than these two, Life and Existence. 

This is the first and most plain lesson of that act or event in 
life which we call Death. The dead body exists as much as 
when it was a living body. Sure it is that a great change has 
occurred. But whatever that change be, it has not affected the 
existence of the body. What we name Life has fled; if we know 
not how or why or whither it has gone, or whence it came or how 
subsisted, it is plain that a power, a motion, a feeling, a response, 
which we call Life, has gone. Yet there lies the body; it can 
not stand nor posture nor balance nor move nor flush any more ; 
but there lies it, an existing thing as much as in life's jocund day- 
spring ; and by the embalming art of man it may be stationed in 
its existence and shape for a hundred generations. 

But now follow the natural course of things and observe 
further. If man interfere not, with his spices and unguents, but 
the body be left to itself, soon there is a change. Its elements 
begin to part from one another, at first slowly but soon rapidly. 
It is picked to pieces by many fingers, by which I mean the forces 
and affinities of the substances in it and around it. We can not 
tell what the mystery of this action is, any more than we can tell 
what life is; but it is plain to our senses. The myriad hands of 
inorganic nature, as we call it, the chemical fingers of matter, 
destroy the body, rend apart its elements, dissolve it, give it to 
the winds, pour it into the sea, shed it in rain and dew, and 
build up plants out of it in the soil. • 

Now, though we can see but little way into the mystery of 
these acts, one thing is plain, that, namely, these mordant and 
dissolving agencies of the mineral kingdom are as active around 
the body in its living state as after it has died. Why then tear 
they not the living body to pieces, as they do the dead? That is 
the very question of Life. If we could answer that, we could tell 
what Life is. All we can say is that by the living body these 



52 DOING AND KNOWING. 

attacking agencies are resisted, but with the dead body they have 
their own way unhindered. Life appears, then, as resistance to 
forces that attack it, as power against these powers. This is the 
appearance and quality of life to our senses, that life is a mys- 
terious capacity of resistance to the equally mysterious power of 
encompassing agencies which attack life. 

Now, here comes to light again a truth and law which be- 
fore I have spoken of. This namely, that life, so long as it glows, 
and puts forth, and persists with strength, is exercised and 
trained by the consuming and eroding agencies swarming around 
it; so that it persists with more strength, and burns grandly by 
virtue of the hostile conditions or resistances which it has over- 
come. I have said before that life with no resistance to it, with 
naught to do to maintain itself, is an impossible thought.* Life 
must gather its substance, its food. That action is energy and 
exercise. And it must void what is useless or poisonous. That 
action also is energy and effort. By the strength of the effort 
and exercise, life grows the more strong. This happens and con- 
tinues unto the rounding down of the mysterious cycle which life 
runs. We know not by what subtle effects, influences, relations, 
life is cyclical ; but so it is. It runs its round course like a fire up 
to fulness and flame, down again to a waning glow and ashes ; 
all the way beautiful, — which proves every stage natural. When 
the vital cycle is fulfilled, the ravaging and dissolving agencies 
prevail. These have no cycle. They lay one steady strain on 
life, never weakening, never for an instant lifted away. At last 
they overcome life, when it has ascended and descended in its 
rhythmical orbit, and its cycle is finished. But softly, with 
wondrous gentleness and a silver beauty and a sculptured ex- 
pressiveness, the attacking agencies prevail. The result is the 
loveliness of age and the quiet peace of its transition. 

Such is the appearance and quality of life as it meets the 
senses and shows itself in the physical frame. Let us come now 
to the domain of mind. Strange were it if in mental life there 
were no analogy to bodily life ; very strange, if life appeared not 
in the mind after the very same manner and laws as in the body. 
And so it is. As in our physical being we have life joined with 
mere existence, which is to say, the vital power and the body in 

*p. 27. 



DOING AND KNOWING. 53 

which that mystery sojourns, so in the mental being we have our 
living part and our merely existing part. These I have named 
heretofore our activity and passivity. Our mere existence-, 
or passivity, is in our desires, emotions, impulses; for in 
these we have no part but sensation of them. We are acted on ; 
like the body, which is acted on by all the encroaching and affect- 
ing agencies around it. Our life, or activity, is in the moral 
nature, in the will. In this we act, decide, determine, put forth, 
strive. In this we act on the emotions, to choose some, to repel 
others, as life assimilates some elements to the body's use, and 
voids or repels others. We can observe no cycle in the life of 
the mind, like to that in the bodily life; nor even can we guess 
what may replace it in the immensity of the mind's life. 
What wonders and knowledge we shall have in the sublime here- 
after, we can not conceive, nor what means and laws of life may 
fill us with astonishment and, be sure, with joy. But here we 
can discern no cycle of the mental life like to the bodily. Only 
we can see plainly that we have life, like to the vitality of the 
body; and that this life is the will, the moral energy; also that 
we have a mere existence like to the body itself; and that this is 
the passive sphere in us, of emotions and desires. This I call 
our merely existing part because in it we are acted on, and have 
no function but to receive impressions. 

Now, the life within us, which is the moral part, the Will 
and its energy, is exercised and trained and led forth unto 
strength by the resistance which the moral nature meets ; like 
as the bodily life is exercised and grows strong by meeting the 
many agencies that attack it. This I have said before in these 
sermons on Doing and Knowing, namely, that a moral life which 
has naught to do to maintain itself, is an impossible thought.* 
We are encompassed with resistance, in all manner of tempta- 
tions, seductions, difficulties, which tax the power of the life of 
the Will; and when the will prevails, it is led forth to more 
power by the exercising of it, by the strength of the enticement 
or difficulty which is overcome. But the passive part, emotions, 
feelings, passions, tend to decrease and weaken by repetition. 
They tend to become less intense the more often they are felt. 
This I have tried to set forth at length before in these sermons 
on Doing and Knowing. 

•P. 28. 



54 DOING AND KNOWING. 

Come now to a closer look at our moral nature. How works 
this law of activity and passivity, of our living part and our part 
which is mere existence, of the will which is life and the emotions 
which are but impressions on us — how works this? Deeply it 
works, effecting and determining in each instance more life in 
us or more death, more action or more of being acted on. Every 
moral effort is a life and death effort. At the issue of it, we are 
more alive by the moral energy of the will, or more dead and 
sunk more in our mere existence, blown about here and there 
like sand by every waft of feeling which penetrates to us from 
the outward. If life, which is the will, sustain itself and .conquer 
in any struggle, then life has become so much the stronger. 
With every repetition of that successful power, life enforces itself 
and is deepend into habit. The act which at first, and many 
times perhaps, cost effort, effort barely triumphant mayhap, has 
enlarged the power of life so much by its reiteration, that now it 
is done with that ease and swift autonomy which is habit. The 
law of the tending of all activities to habit is the increase of life 
through the resistance overcome; for the strength of the resist- 
ance passes into the life or moral energy which overcomes it. 
By this we come more and more to act from a store of central 
life, a mighty quality of life, so that consciousness of effort flees, 
and we seem but to breathe deeply, as it were, and to walk with 
a blissful power and life. 

But if in any conflict life sustain not itself, if the will be 
overcome, then the evil act, as well as the good, tends to become 
a habit, while the passive emotions which prevailed will grow 
weaker with every repetition. Thus life dwindles so much that 
the will yields more readily with each instance while the entice- 
ment becomes less; until at last it is overthrown, washed in 
death. The evil act then is performed as the sand drifts, and 
we have sunk from life to a mere existence ; an easy prey mean- 
while to every new impulse, as the sand is drifted by every gust 
of wind. I mean not that the moral and spiritual spark ever can 
be extinguished utterly and the soul die past ever arising into any 
life again. No. Far be that from our faith, and from our 
thoughts of the redeeming' laws and discipline and patience of 
God. But deep is the law of the tendency and working of evil, 
the law of activity and passivity, of vital power and mere existence, 
of life and death, in human nature. 



DOING AND KNOWING. 55 

Now we may answer again the question with which we set 
forth. That question is of the relations between the moral 
nature and the knowing powers, whereby knowledge comes of 
right doing, or, as Jesus phrased it, "He that wills to do the 
will of God shall know of the teaching." We may answer the 
question by means of the law of life in us. Some specific reasons 
come to mind why the good man should be the understand- 
ing man; such as, the trained power of industry which lies in an 
exercised and living will, and the faculty of fixed and continued 
attention confirmed by this same power of will. But underlying 
all such reasons or visible capacities of life, is the one cause, the 
fact of life itself. The good man is alive. This is the reason 
why he has faculty to know. If in the body the blood be pure, 
the nerves sound, life abundant, the life thrills not only in vital 
centers but in every fiber, runs in the feet, grasps in the hand, 
inhales deeply of the air, sets tensely every muscle, flushes in the 
cheek, sparkles in the eye. So in the soul; to be alive is to re- 
joice and put forth in all faculties. Let there be life in the center 
thereof, which is the moral being, and life plays in the fancy, 
constructs in the imagination, wings aspiration, empowers love, 
prays in religion, thinks in the understanding, knows in the 
reason. To be alive, this it is which in its action is power and 
knowledge in its holy and unfathomable source in Infinite Life is 
inspiration. The moral life within us, the energy of the will, 
and therewith the growth of the love of good, that spiritual spark 
from God which for evermore strives to flame forth, and never 
can be extinguished utterly, we do believe, — that life is the 
mystery of us, wherein we live move and have our being in God. 
To be more alive is to be more inspired of God in that measure, 
and given to know the good, the beautiful and the true. To be 
so deeply alive, so full of moral energy by faithfulness, that the 
whole soul looks forth unto the one object of knowledge, who is 
"The One in the many," the Infinite, the Eternal, — this is to be 
prophet and Christ. But more life or less, the mystery is 
the same. That we live, is the inspiration of God. There- 
upon God gives the increase of life, as all else, according 
to laws which appear as if executing themselves, They are 
the ways of God. 



56 DOING AND KNOWING. 

The effect of this law of life in masses of men is one of the 
Providential ways whereby truth and virtue put on strength, but 
evil is clad in weakness and destruction. Good is continually 
active and life-making; evil is essentially passive and death- 
brmging. Great multitudes, like nations or races, who fall to 
evil ways and practice them, are prevented from perpetuating the 
evil. They are prevented by loss of life. Think what would fol- 
low in the world if great injustices, avarice, luxury, slavery, 
wantonness, were able to draw power to themselves and increase 
in strength, or even to stand steadfast in their strongholds. Then 
rioting, luxury, violence and robbery never would fail, because 
they would use any means, scrupling not at any measures of 
force or fraud. But they cannot, because they cease to be alive. 
This is visible majestically throughout history, told over and over 
in the fall of decaying communities or empires, when luxury, 
wantonness and greed have displaced early fortitude, simplicity 
and virtue. There may be greater wealth, vaster material re- 
s ources, countless numbers. 'Tis no matter. Life has waned. 
Courage in the camp and wisdom in the council go with it, and 
the people fall. Neither is the race to the swift nor the battle to 
the strong. Power is a moral fact. The name of that fact is 
Life; and the name of Life is God. 

Thus then, in widest and holy terms, with mystery and 
glory and worship, we may answer the question with which we 
set forth, the question of the relation of moral being to the know- 
ing faculty, contained in the deep words of the Master. This is 
the answer, that moral being is to the knowing faculty as a 
fountain of life to one stream thereof; that if we will to do the 
will of God we shall know of the teaching, because then we shall 
be filled with life — which is to breathe of the infinity of God, 



TIME IN EELIGION. 
I. 

My subject is Religion in some of its relations to Time. 
Time is like a river, all one. But it is mapped and named by 
the provinces through which it passes. The provinces of the 
river of Time are the Past, the Present, the Future. I shall 
speak of some relations of Religion to each of these in turn. 
In this discourse I speak of the Past. 

I hope to go with you to a hill from which we may have some 
prospect of the nature of religion. But let me lead thither from 
a point afar off; and I will trust that the road to the hill will 
have given us some knowledge and experience whereby the better 
to understand the prospect from the top when we shall have 
climbed to it. 

I begin the journey, then, by imagining a crowded multi- 
tude of people. Conceive of a vast throng of men swaying in 
waves, pouring around you like waters, and surging in one di- 
rection like a stream. Add to your picture the circumstances, 
the attire, the vehicles, the voices and clamors, the calls, some- 
times the dead silences. I have stood 

Where throngs of men were sweeping by me, busy 

fteturning from more business ; and women too, 

Yea, even girls and boys, all tired, all glad 

To be let out into the air from labor. 

Voices released, rang loud on every side ; 

On pavements the crowds rattled, and thronging beasts 

Jostled each other to the driver's call 

And crack of whip,— sometimes a wrathful scream,— 

Though soon engulfed in the great roar that rose, 

Like wind and wave commingled on the coast, 

Around me. And the sharp, shrill tread of feet 

On pavement, multitudinous, came up 

To top the roar, shot with sheen gleams of voices. 

I heard a distant bell, clanging before, 

Now rolling with the rest, so that all seemed 

An instant as if all were bells, different, 

Uut ringing with one thought in many parts. 



58 TIME IN RELIGION. 

It was grand, this symphony, 

Of hurrying men and rustling dress of women, 

The boy's halloo, the laugh of girls (what weddings ! ), 

And prattle of toddling babes, led by their hands, 

The rattling wagons, teamster's shout, dogs barking, 

The clangor of great doors opening and shutting, 

All mingled in one vast reverberation 

Which to my sense was wondrous harmony. 

With such a picture in your mind, and multitudes throng- 
ing around you, reflect on the vastness of the whole, the insig- 
nificance of any one. 

That is not a depressing reflection. There is a " blessed- 
ness of being little." 'Tis sad to plug up with ourselves a port 
of the Universe. 'Tis inspiriting and full of power so to yield 
us to the pathetic sight of a vast concourse of people as not 
even to bethink us how little we are, but to be clothed with the 
majesty of the vast assembling of men and things. I like often 
to be lost in a company, in an extensive multitude. I delight 
then to feel merged and dissolved in humanity. 'Tis a soothing, 
a baptising, a supporting of me, like being out of sight in the 
washing of a sea which floats me. 

The " blessedness of being little," of feeling ourselves in- 
cluded and involved with many things, from which apart we are 
naught, but with them partake of vastness, — this lacks not 
pleasant fables to preach it. For example: An eagle swooping 
up and down at a great height, cried to a linnet who was perched 
on a rose-tree, " Poor thing, thou insignificance, thou feeble- 
plume, thou knowest not the upper air, nor the crag whither 
no other creature can come, either by flying or by climbing ! " 
" Peace be with you," said the linnet; " for my part I rather 
would sing on a rose-tree than scream on a crag. And you 
have no company. I am contained in a great flock. I rather 
would be a small portion of a great thing than the whole of a 
smaller thing." 

When we are in a vast throng, we feel the power of the 
people. In them is the hope, the light, the sight, of humanity. 

" When the state-house is the hearth, 
When the church is private worth, 
Then the perfect state is come, 
The republican at home." 

Here and there arise voices; but the people is the great 
voice. Here and there shoot stars of singers ; but the people is 



TIME IN BELIGION. 59 

the great song. Great captains start up here and there; but 
the people rule the rulers, and keep the keepers. The men of 
the highways and byways, they do the acting and the thinking, 
the loving, the teaching and the praying, in the house, at the 
fire-side, in the shop, the school, the church. In a crowded 
assembly we are made to know that it is not the few but the many 
w T hom we must acknowledge and reverence; as from a vantage- 
point where a city is seen, it is not the spires but the houses 
that make the city. 

Will you have another fable, for this truth? From the 
bowels of the earth some shining jet was taken and a fire 
builded of it. Said the blue flames that fluttered and rustled 
over the surface, " Who is appareled like to us ? what beauty is 
like our beauty? " "Be still," said the fire, "you are only the 
tongues to this burning heart beneath you." 

Yet, now, take another view. Behold a great concourse 
swayed by the power of one man. He melts destinies in his 
will, he moulds cities in his heart, he shapes states in his judg- 
ment, he leads armies with his cunning, he breaks the hearts of 
senates with his speech. He may be in command and his word 
issue like law, as Alfred of England was. Or he may be seated 
in persuasion, and lead by a fiery breath, like Peter the Hermit. 
But however it be, from throne or desk, in armor or gown, we 
behold the supremacy and power of one man over many. The 
vast throng is silent, the vast throng bows; rises the individual, 
and they obey, and obeying, they adore. 

But now, I pray you, look more closely at this power of the 
individual. Is it not the power of utterance, of putting forth 
into effect, of bringing to a terse or supple shape a popular faith 
or form — is it not this which is the power of the one man? 
The few who lead must speak and serve the thoughts which are 
seething unspoken in the people. They may chasten, instruct, 
qualify, inform these thoughts; but they can move no jot, nor 
effect anything, till the thoughts be present and already burning 
with a lively fire in the people's heart. Alfred of England — a 
name to stir the blood — did mighty things and was a very 
great and good man. Yet he would have been but as a leaf in 
the wind if he had not been the voice and hand of England's 
will to drive out the Dane and keep the land for Saxon homes. 



60 TIME IN BELIGION. 

So was Peter the Hermit but a flame from the fiery heart of 
Christendom. This mm was a mis-shapen dwarf, who found 
his way in military service to Palestine and the Holy City, and 
came back roaring with the flame kindled in him by the suf- 
fering of Christian prisoners whom he had seen in the hands of 
Moslems, and by the power of uubelievers, in the City of C'irist. 
His puny and ungainly body was shrunken still more and ema- 
ciated by his ascetic discipline. He was very contemptible as an 
object. Yet he aroused the north of Europe as by a whirlwind. 
All Christendom sprang to the Crusades and waged the wars for 
a hundred years. It was not Peter the Hermit, but Peter the 
Voice of the Faith, Peter the Utterance of the Common Heart, 
who did that work. Without that fiery flood on which he stood, 
he mig'it hive b)en like a funm* hill spxifcin* soma toii'U^s of 
smoke, but not the volcano which he was, pouring floods of 
fire. His screams would have been as contemptible as his body. 
So it is, in like manner, in Antony's oration. The shrewd man 
attempted no argument, as Brutus did, but translated the people 
to themselves, — 

"I am no orator as Brutus is ; 
Bat as you know me all, a plain, blunt man. 

* * * 

I only speak right on : 
I tell you that which you yourselves do know, 
Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths, 
And bid them speak for me " 

In such instances, when some voice utters the fervors of the 
people's heart, men accept it as they take the grandeurs of na- 
ture, by kindred spirit. The poet, the leader, is then like to 
the great forces and splendors of nature, which appeal to us be- 
cause we are like them. Well has it been said: " We must all 
have felt, when certain effects in nature, combinations of form 
and color, have been presented to us, our own idea speaking in 
intelligent and yet celestial language; when, for instance, the 
long bars of purple, ' edged with intolerable radiance,' seemed 
to float in a sea of pale, pure green, when the whole sky seemed 
to reel with thunder, when the night-wind moaned. It is won- 
derful how the most common-place men and women, beings 
who, as you would have thought, had no conception that rose 
beyond a commercial speculation, or a fashionable entertainment, 




TIME IN RELIGION. 6 1 

are elevated by such scenes ; how the slumbering grandeur of 
their nature, wakes and acknowledges kindred with the sky 
and storm. ' I cannot speak,' they would say, ' the feelings 
which are in me; I have had emotions, aspirations, thoughts; I 
cannot put them into words. Look there! listen now to the 
storm! That is what I meant, only I never could say it out till 

So cry the people to the poet, prophet, bard, to the true 
king, — " You speak us ; you are the voice of us ; we know your 
words, because they were in our hearts before; go onward; we 
follow; we are yours because you are ours." 

Here let me state in brief just what so far 1 have said. I 
have stated — 

That when we are encompassed with a multitude, we feel 
the vastness of the whole and the insignificance of the individual ; 

That the people do the real acting and thinking and feel- 
ing of the world, in home and mart and school; 

That nevertheless we often behold great multitudes appar- 
ently swayed and moved by one man, or by a few; 

That this shows the power and supremacy of the individual, 
who before seemed so insignificant in the midst of the throng; 

That, however, when we look closely at this individual 
power, it seems in the main to consist in the faculty of utterance ; 

That the one man, or the few, lead and move the world, 
because they express what is surging in the common heart. 

Now, as time goes on and the present is swallowed into the 
far past, it is the utterance, the expression, that remains visible 
and conspicuous. All the vast multitude, the countless many, 
fade from sense, from memory, from record. It must be so. 
In history no names, no deeds, no stories, remain of the great 
body of the people. The multitude makes only one broad and 
even mark on the page, in which no individual influences ap- 
pear. But those who have uttered the voice of the many, who 
have expressed the common heart in song, prophecy, command, 
they remain visible, and tower above. And the further we get 
away from any epoch, the less we discern the throngs of men in 
it, and the more we behold standing forth the eminent few who 
gave utterance to the songs and flames, the woes and joys and 
needs, of the people's hearts. 



62 TIME IN RELIGION. 

Hence it is very sure that the past will become resolved 
into instances and figures of solitary grandeur. At its time, 
every epoch was a vast, stirring 1 , fecund popular life, mighty and 
affecting, with here and there some towering person held up by 
the people because he was able to be the utterer of the people's 
soul. But at a far distance, all this great stir of life settles and 
levels and is out of sight, and only the towering persons remain 
visible. 

Conceive a pleasant country of fields and villages, in which 
arises a lofty and craggy mountain. The pretty towns and 
fields slope to the sea shore, nodding to the ocean with billows 
of grain and red-roofed homes of love. Over them hang the 
mountain crags, where eagles perch and lightnings play with 
thunders. Below, all is plenty and power, growth and peace, 
beauty and simplicity, seed time and harvest, birth and life, and 
death, wondrous abundance. Abov?, all is awe and solitude, 
caverns and glooms, and the house of storms. You will look up 
to the mountain and adore ; you will look on the smiling valleys 
and adore too, and there you will choose to dwell. Now sail 
away over the sea. Soon the low shore will sink. Gone are all 
the full houses of the people, the fields of their food, the mead- 
ows of their cattle, the bells of their churches, their stores and 
halls, and the green places where they sport. But the mountain 
rears its lofty height and looms on the vessel, till at last, after 
long standing alone, it blends with the parallel grandeur of the 
sky. So loom and stay aloft the bards and leaders who are 
lifted up among mankind, when the throngs of the people and 
their dwellings sink below our vision on the coasts of the Past. 

Now, as the people get further and further away from the 
few lofty persons, the towering men, who remain high in view, 
when at last the people have gone far enough away, and look 
back on the grand persons from a far distance, a strange and 
beautiful thing comes to pass. The people begin to clothe the 
grand characters who remain towering into sight in that far past, 
with wonder-stories. This the people do under the influence of 
their religion, which is a force very mighty in human history and 
life. When the people look back and gaze on those great fig- 
ures, immense and mysterious in the silver mists of the distant 
time, they say to one another that such mighty persons were 



TIME IN RELIGION. 63 

gods, or messengers of God. Soon the things told of them grow, 
and are clothed with mystery. Other stories break forth like 
flowers and springs, all marvelous and full of sacred signs and 
deeds and divine powers. Soon the great figures are covered 
and mantled with these marvels, these simple wonderful stories, 
as if they were in a corona of light, whence rays shoot forth 
and sparkles are showered on every hand. These stories are 
the miracles with which all early histories and all religious 
records and scriptures shine. They are the simple outbreak of 
the people's religious feeling, when they look back to the grand 
shapes, the mighty persons, looming up in their far past* These, 
with wonder and awe, the people cover with their religious feel- 
ing, and behold them in the light of a divine presence which they 
ascribe to them. To that reverent backward gaze, all appears 
vivid, wonder- working, sacred, mysterious, divine. 

In the northern hills of our country there is a mountain 
ledge overhanging a quiet, small lake lying like a mirror below. 
The ledge is a mass of bare rocks, jutting one from another, 
boldly defined against the sky. If you stand close to these 
crags, they form no figure, agree in no shape. They are but as 
other reeky juttings, piled one on another and overhanging. 
But go away from them, and they begin to melt one into another 
strangely, and to agree in a mysterious combination. At last 
from a right distance look up at them, and they have become a 
countenance. A "great stone face," a mighty face, with grand 
forehead, a powerful nose and firm chin, a vast and perfect pro- 
file, forms the top of the mountain cliff, looking over the lake 
and the valley. No one can look on " the great stone face " un- 
moved. Its stern majesty, its moral power, is tremendous. 
Often have I gazed up at it with a reversion to the old wild ages 
seizing on me, a trembling, a fear, an impulse to fall prostrate 
and worship. This illustrates what happens among a re- 
ligious people when they look at the events and persons of their 
history. When they are near, the leaders, the bards, the great 
deeds are only common blocks, things familiar, piled together 
as happened in the transactions of the time. But when the 
people have traveled far away and looked back, all is changed. 
Lo, a face! All then seems full of meaning, and everything has 
purpose; all is personal; the great events and characters draw 



64 TIME IN RELIGION. 

together and agree in a divine presence, in a countenance which 
looks forth and overall — the countenance of God! Thus arises 
the element of marvel, myths, miracles in religion among 
early races; and once arisen, it lasts long and holds mightily to 
the imagination, the awe and fear, the affections of men. So 
that even yet the old and lovely miracle-stories are taken as 
veritable facts by almost all the world. But in truth they are 
the religious dreams and reverence with which the people looked 
back to the far past, where their great characters had become 
mysterious and heavenly by the transmuting effect of the dis- 
tance, wkich left them looming alone in the divine horizon. 

Here, then, we come intelligently on the tendency of re- 
ligion, during so long ages, to cling to the past and to found 
on it. This springs from two great causes. 

First, religion must rest on individual impulses and in- 
spirations. It springs from the teachers. It arises from bards 
who sing of creation; from prophets who utter the everlasting 
verities, and call to the people to come to the hill of the Lord. 
Then at last the whole past seems to be only these great figures. 
All else has sunk and vanished. They remain. They loom 
grandly, ominously. Keligion clings about them. 

Again, religion rests by nature on the sense of the divine 
immanence. Eeligion can have no other source or life. If the 
power of God be not here and now, there is no religion. There- 
fore religion must rest in divinity immanent and living with us. 
By this nature of it, religion first forms the miracles and signs 
which shine around the far great bards and leaders, and then 
rejoices in the miracles, and clings about them, as being and 
showing the very present power and overshadowing of God. 

Here come we intelligently, as I have said, to the historical 
fact that religion always hitherto has clung about the past and 
turned to it for the proofs, the power and the glory of faith. 
Here see we plainly the fact, and the nature and reason of it, 
that the great religions, like Christianity, Islam, Judaism, the 
Parsee Faith, have founded themselves on an epoch in the far 
past, on historical events and great persons, to which these 
religions have looked back with awe and love for their origin, 
their proofs, their claims, their wonders. 

The mental condition which Das produced the fine stories 



TIME IN RELIGION. 65 

of wonders and signs in all religions, is very childlike, very 
simple and lovely. It is the spiritual posture of trust, depend- 
ence, uplooking, — faith in its most simple and acceptable form. 
With perfect simplicty and good faith the miraculous stories 
broke forth, because the people were full of the child's feeling 
that all things are living and have a sense, a power. Im- 
mediate life, divinity, mystery, might, pressed on them. They 
beheld and felt the deity on every hand. 

Well is it for us if with adult knowledge we have kept the 
childlike soul. If while we reason about the fire and gather 
the chemistry of it, we feel also the warmth of it, it is well with 
us. If with our collections of knowledge, our arrays of expla- 
nations, our maps of heaven and earth, we lose not the sense of 
mystery and of the holy deeps of nature, it is well with us. Nay, 
if our study, our research, our balances, beakers, alembics and 
scalpels, lead us to a deeper and holier awe, a mystery more 
vast and beautiful, as surely these implements should do, it is 
well with us. If, however we divide, analyze and handle what 
nature has crystallized, we feel bathed in life and can see naught 
but life around us, and hear only life, immediate life, wondrous 
and holy presence, awful and beautiful presence, severe and lov- 
ing presence, it is well with us. If we go our way cheerfully 
like children, glad in a simple feeling of the wonders and 
beauties of earth and of men, taking them vividly and like 
sweet gifts, singing songs and saying prayers, it is well with us. 
It is then very well with us. Peace, joy, strength, exuberance, 
reverence, greatness, are with us. Before the child can come 
to full manhood, the man must come again to his childhood, or 
happily never have lost it. Then "mind and soul, according 
well, make music as before, — but vaster." 



EELIGION AND TIME. 
II. 

In my first sermon on Religion and Time, I sought to show 
how it is that Religion always has a fond backward look and for 
a very long time holds to the past and plants itself in the won- 
ders and the great persons of some far and shining epoch. In 
this discourse I have to treat of Religion as related to the future; 
and this relation, I think, we shall see to grow naturally from 
the look of love and reverence with which Religion first turns 
itself toward the far and sacred past. 

Religion looks backward to a "golden age." At that blessed 
time — so it seems to the eye of early Religion — God walked with 
men and led them by the hand. A light of mysterious and holy 
presence, a mystical power, a wonder and glory, brooded over 
the people. The sun and stars, the wind and waters, were full 
of signs, and were obedient to God's command to work wonders 
for his people. All nature was placable and pleasant and peace- 
ful ; or if arising in wrath, it was for some sin of the people, soon 
shrived and forgiven. The people were valient, confident, glori- 
ous, great in achievements; their Kings were magnificent, their 
deeds mighty, their renown splendid. All this has gone. Na- 
ture has lost that vast glow. Men have departed from the 
ancient excellence. They have not the strength of old; the 
majesty has fled which lighted the antique time, for ' 'there were 
giants in those days." 

Such seems "the golden age" of men and nature when Re- 
ligion looks backward to its beginning, to its first recollections. 

But now, if Religion thus looks backward for its age of 
gold, it follows that Religion will look forward for a like precious 



68 EELIGION AND TIME. 

era. If it have descended from one such sacred and happy time 
in the past, which is no more, it will look forward to another in 
the future which is to arise. If the present time seem but a 
flat common to which we have come down from eastern moun- 
tains that are gilded in the heavens, Eeligion inevitably will look 
forward to new hills and heights in the future which again shall 
pierce the sky. For the human heart never is hopeless. Never 
it loses its belief, its assurance of good, its triumph ; never it 
thinks, nor can believe, that divinity is spent and good times 
ended. If they be not here now, they but linger waiting. The 
present is but the suspension of them, as rain suspended is a 
dark cloud, but descending brings drops splendid with the etherial 
fires. The human spirit clings to hope, to faith in a good and 
golden time ; to belief that all things good and great, whatsoever 
not now are visible but once have been visible, are but stored up 
and again will be opened ; to confidence in love, in peace, in hu- 
man greatness and destiny, in the fate of the creatures of God 
and in divine Perfectness; — to these the human soul clings like 
a tree around its heart, mighty against all tempests while that 
heart is sound. What glory has been at any time, says the 
heart of man, and is not now, surely will be again. 

Therefore it happens that every religion which has looked 
backward to a great past for its glories and sanctions, has looked 
forward to a new * 'golden age" or heaven. 

But consider again. If Eeligion have a special holy time 
in the past, a sacred dispensation, an authority to which heart 
and mind must bow, this must be a conception of God as a 
monarch, throned somewhere, a legislator or maker of statutes 
and a governor or king who enforces those decrees. The Most 
High is conceived then as a potentate, a Lord Paramount, a 
sovereign, of vast power, who descends from his courts at times 
to correct things on the earth and make known himself, his mes- 
sengers or his decrees by miracles, mighty marvels, the like of 
which only an unlimited will and the power of an Almighty word 
could do. For these things are not in the present. No one 
looks to see the sun stand still, mountains flame and thunderous 
voices break from them, seas divide into watery walls, cities fall 
at a trumpet-blast, angels trooping and singing in the sky, 
prophets caught up to heaven in fiery chariots, and a vast multi- 



RELIGION AND TIME. 69 

tude of men fed to satisfaction with a handful of bread and fish 
— no one looks for such things now. In the present, all is order 
and an even march of things. One day dawns, ascends, 
descends, and goes its way, like another. The power of God is 
beheld in the order, not in a temporary overthrowing of the 
order. Now, if Eeligion look backward for glories and sanctions 
and greatness, it must be for splendors and greatness after a 
kind and manner not beheld in the present; else the present 
would satisfy, and there would be no straining of the vision into 
the past, but the present would be full of awe. Therefore, Ee- 
ligion, as I have said, in its reverent and intense backward gaze, 
into a mysterious past, must conceive of that past as very differ- 
ent from the quiet harmony of the present and that immanence 
of divine life which now is the unspeakable stillness under the 
day and the night. Religion must conceive then of God as the 
monarch and legislator and worker of great signs and marvels, 
"high on a throne of royal state." And so Religion has con- 
ceived, as I have said in the former discourse, of Religion as re- 
lated to the Past. 

Now, if Religion thus conceived of a monarch-deity and 
legislator-deity in the past, it was inevitable that Religion then 
should conceive of a rewarding deity in the future, who should 
give the recompense of obedience and adjust all things right- 
eously. For always now, in ,the present, all things are incom- 
plete. There is no equalization. Behold, on every hand the 
wicked flourishing, the good abused, even unto death; « 'right on 
the scaffold, wrong on the throne;" idle luxury riding in purple 
and ermine, frugal labor plodding the path of privations ; anger, 
pride and oppression triumphant, meekness, generosity and pa- 
tience overcome. Therefore, the rewards and punishments being 
so unequal in the present time, the religion which looks back- 
ward to a special dispensation, to a proclamation of divine com- 
mands with wonders and signs, to a monarch-deity on a far and 
high-heavenly throne, giving statutes, surely must look to the 
future, to a heaven of recompense, for the rewards and indem- 
nities of the divine command. And so has Religion done, in 
every instance. Whenever Religion has founded on a miraculous 
past, equally it has rested faith and hope in a heaven of the 
future. 



70 RELIGION AND TIME. 

A story of a robber, and of a merchant whom he fell on by 
the roadside, will illustrate this fact in Keligion. The merchant 
sought to reason with the highwayman to prevail with him to be 
let go, by setting forth the dangers of robbing on the king's 
roads. "Heavy punishments have been decreed for this vio- 
lence," said the merchant, "for this lawlessness, this robbing on 
the highway. The king decrees that for such offense you shall 
be cast into prison and be made to labor in chains, with a cell 
of iron for your chamber and a wooden settle for your bed, and 
that you shall be branded on the cheek that all men may know 
you are a robber." "And where may this king live who com- 
mands so?" said the bandit. "In the great city a thousand 
miles eastward," said the merchant. "Then belike his prisons 
and chains are a thousand miles west of me," said the brigand; 
"I see none hereabouts. What have his commands to do here ?" 
"Nay," said the merchant, "but there is more than the king's 
own power. For he has proclaimed these decrees and punish- 
ments because he has received them from a magnificent and 
mighty king who went before him, who declared that robbery 
should be a base crime forever and should be punished so; and 
also he caused to be ordained not only these chastisements for 
the crime but also great rewards, a pension, decorations, stars on 
the breast and gold chains around the neck, for all such as attain 
to sixty years of life with no fraudulent deed." "And when," 
said the robber, "lived this king who caused to be cried abroad 
these great things?" "A thousand years ago, in a holy and 
mighty time," answered the merchant. "Ha!" said the robber, 
"We may wait a thousand years yet for his fine promises. He 
will be as long again as he has been, I trow. Come, unpack 
you! Deliver!" 

But consider again of this principle, namely, that whatever 
religion looks to the past for its authority will look surely to a 
future for rewards and glories. With this notion of a special 
source, authority, sanction and presence of the power of God at 
a past epoch, goes the conception of a chosen people. Thus the 
Jews believed themselves elected above all nations by the favor 
of God. They were the peculiar and chosen people, Israel be- 
loved of the Lord, to be set on high above all others, and glori- 
fied by a covenant which the Most High had made with them. 



BELIGION AND TIME. 71 

Likewise the Moslems so think of themselves, as of the cher- 
ished and favored race, endowed with the last fruits of prophecy, 
and builded for a temple of the one true faith. Not less have 
Christians claimed, who have considered all others to be pagans 
and heathen, unbelievers, sceptics, impious people, scoffers, 
doomed worthily to be outcasts forever in perdition and fire. 

Now this must be so. I say it must be that if any religion 
build itself on a past time of miracles and divine glories no 
longer companionable with men, the people of that religion will 
think of themselves as a chosen race. For if we alone of all 
earth's peoples, we alone, have the true religion, and it were 
given forth for us by a special grace and with heavenly wonders 
and signs of fire and cloud at a past time, then we are the chosen 
ones of the Lord by that special grace, marvel and favor of his 
power. 

Our great and holy prophet, the Master, the lowly Nazarene, 
shows in his life how swiftly the thought of being chosen and set 
above others by God, will vanish when religion is referred no more 
to the past, nor builded on special wonders therein. Jesus was 
a Jew, born into all the fervors, prides, hopes, memories and 
worship of his people. All religion was builded, like a city of 
spires, within a wall, which was Moses. Thirteen hundred 
years before had lived Moses; around him had gathered the 
flames and thunders of Sinai, the plagues of Egypt, the division 
of the sea, the manna in the desert, and a thousand mighty 
wonders and favors of Yahweh. On this special presence of the 
Almighty religion had been builded; and they who had the heri- 
tage thereof were the chosen people. But Jesus grew alone, — so 
I read the record, — for thirty years, thirty years of opening spir- 
itual life, growing into a deep and peaceful brooding on the 
monitions in his own soul. Then he began to teach, saying 
that religion was not founded on Moses, but in the soul ; and 
"Why judge ye not even of yourselves what is right?" and he 
"spoke with authority," out of his own soul, and hesitated not to 
go clean contrary to the principles of Moses, as about the Sab- 
bath day, the washing of hands, and many precepts and usages. 
Now when thus he had done away with the building of religion 
on the past and had laid its foundations in the soul, at once all 
the prides of race and all claims to being a chosen and coven- 



72 RELIGION AND TIME. 

anted people fled away from before his face; fled afar off, and 
made room for those beautiful teachings and parables, the good 
Samaritan, the lowly Publican at prayer, the poor penitent, the 
outcast, the shamed and despised, the spiritual kingdom, the 
faithful to do the will of God, and the same his brother and his 
sister, and many such teachings, which knitted up the rent body 
and made humanity whole once more. 

Bat now, if with the founding of religion in the past and on 
special wonders and signs, must arise the claim of being a chosen 
people, so with this claim must arise a forecasting, a dream, a 
forward look, a launching into the future. For to the chosen 
people always are given promises and predictions, future sanc- 
tions and rewards ; for never is the chosen people as glorious as 
its dreams, nor as it believes the elect of the Lord must be, and 
often indeed it is abused and cast down in misfortunes, defeats, 
oppressions, servitude. Therefore always there are promises 
and golden pictures of the future. Thus again we come on the 
truth that a religion looking back for its sactions and divine 
counsels, will look forward for its rewards and divine redemption. 
So was it with the Jews, who, having a golden age of religion in 
Moses and the prophets, looked forward to a future splendor in 
the Messiah and his kingdom. So is it with the Christian, who, 
having a golden age in Jesus and the Apostles, looks onward to a 
heaven of golden streets and precious pleasures. 

But now, consider again this principle. All that pertains 
to Religion must be either outward or inward. I mean it must 
be either an externality, a formality, or else a spirituality and 
inward power. Either it must be seated in the soul and have 
its authority and throne there, and then its value, rewards and 
fruits will be sought in the soul; or else it must be founded on 
some outward authority at some time and place, and then it will 
be like to appeal to outward results, rewards and fruits. If the 
source of Religion be an external source, or it appeal to some- 
thing given to man and added to him rather than springing up in 
him by his spiritual nature, then the aim, virtue and fruits of the 
religion will not seem to be in the soul, in spiritual growth, 
beauty and peace, but in some good things or advantage to be 
received from the outward source or power which is the author- 
ity and origin of the religion. In brief, if we look outward for 






BELIGION AND TIME. 73 

the authority of Eeligion, we shall be like equally to look out- 
ward for its virtue and rewards. 

A story illustrates this, not unhappily, I think. In a little 
fishing village on the coast of a great kingdom, a fisherman one 
day had the luck to catch a very fine turbot. So large and 
handsome a fish of that valuable kind was very rare. It 
weighed fifty good pounds. The like of it had not been seen 
within the memory of the oldest fisherman. The worthy man 
and his good wife surveyed their prize with delight and walked 
round and round it rapturously ; but never once they thought to 
use it for themselves, nor to sell it. Such a fish must have no 
less a destiny than the king's table. Soon, therefore, clad in 
his best, the fisherman was at the palace gates, and being ad- 
mitted, layed the great turbot before the king and besought, with 
many long humble phrases, his Majesty to accept it. " Wil- 
lingly, my good man," said the king, "and what reward shall I 
give you for it ?" Now if the honest man or his wife had taken 
thought of the riches of the king when they devoted the turbot 
to him, and had considered what reward they should get, the 
fisherman would have been ready enough with answer. But as 
they had offered the turbot out of pure loyalty and reverence, 
because they conceived so fine a fish, such as never was seen by 
them before, must go whither their hearts most ascended, which 
was to the throne of the king, the good man knew not what to 
say, and indeed was all surprised and no little hurt by an offered 
reward. But after a little, and being once more asked by the 
king what payment would please him, he said, "Sire, I am but a 
poor man, and have but little knowledge; tell me, therefore, 
Bule you the realm by your armies ?" "Not so," said the king, 
"nor by any outward force, but by my divine right to my peo- 
ple's hearts, being king." "True," said the fisherman; "and as 
I bring hither this turbot for that reason in the heart, as the king 
rules by the like reason, how need I any money for it, any more 
than the king needs force of arms in the realm ?" 

Thus Beligion, like the offering of the fisherman, if it be 
builded in the soul will look for no rewards and no virtue of it 
but in the soul. But if it be builded on events and authority 
which are outward and historical, then will it look for results 
and rewards which are outward, to be brought about in like 



74 EELIGION AND TIME. 

manner by some events which shall happen. Or thus again and 
in brief I may express it: The sanctions and support of Reli- 
gion are of two kinds, — first, the authority it rests upon ; and 
secondly, the results or fruits of it. Now, both of these will be 
outward if either be. 

But thus again, thereupon, we behold the religion which 
looks back to the past for its power also looking to the future 
for its recompense and virtue. For the outward value and re- 
ward which wait with expectation on the outward authority, 
never are to be found in the present. Here, at the moment, 
appear no greater glories or privileges or comforts for the be- 
liever than for the unbeliever, or even for the meek and faithful 
than for the proud and deceitful, for the brave and long-suffering 
than for the truant and time-pleaser. Therefore the outward 
rewards and advantages not here visible are conceived of as 
awaiting in a future heaven. The religion which looks back for 
its own image to a Palestine on earth, must look forward for 
its joys to a golden city beyond the earth; and so does it ever. 

The nature or theory of Religion, when thus it looks back 
to a past epoch and to historical events or persons for its source 
or sanctions, and then thereby inevitably forward into the fu- 
ture for its virtue and recompense, — the nature or theory of Re- 
ligion, I say, is then a bargain or barter, or a selfishness, a fol- 
lowing after some advantage. So much belief or assent, accept- 
ance of the ancient rules, wonders, books, ritual, creed, and, 
over against this, so much reward, glory, happiness, in a 
heavenly city. Thus Religion, by building on the past for its 
sanction, and thereby on the future for its value and virtue, be- 
comes a kind of barter or covenanting with God. This is a very 
low thought of Religion. I can not see that it has more of 
wings and heavenly flight in it than any other selfish object, ex- 
cept for what effect may flow from the object of pursuit being so 
far off and now invisible. There is some virtue in pursuing 
what is not to be had instantly and is unseen ; and the further 
away it is in time and the more beyond human senses, the greater 
is the virtue in the pursuit of it. But beyond this, I can see not 
why a selfish religion is more excellent for us than any other 
selfishness, or why to entreat for heaven will not degrade a prayer 
as much as to beg for riches, or why to plan and barter for 



EELIGION AND TIME. 75 

heaven is worship at all. In this state of Religion, in which it 
is a strain after salvation and pleasant things beyond, all 
the popular churches around us still linger. I say this without 
any contempt. Simply I see the fact, and say so, that they per- 
severe in the ancient and primitive way. They are still building 
themselves not in the soul but on a history outside the soul, on 
a far era and long past events, and thereby they are looking for- 
ward to a heaven afar beyond, as the aim and finishing of the 
religion. But what I have to preach is that this is not the na- 
ture of Religion, nor has it grown truly unto the stature and true 
countenance of Religion, but is something far down and low in 
the unfolding of Religion and only slowly growing up to it. I 
apply to it the excellent law of virtue which Francis Newman 
has stated ; for, says he, it is true that virtue will arrive at credit, 
honor and power in the world ; but they who aim at the honor 
have not the virtue. In like manner, let it be true that Religion 
will lift us to great joys and powers and companies here or here- 
after ; but if we seek the powers and companies, we have not the 
religion. I think, unless I be far out in my observation, that a 
large part of the religion taught and experienced in the churches, 
is but preparation for entering the next world with eclat ; and 
when I note the flurry of the preparation, the din of the prayers', 
the groans and sweat of the exertions, it seems to me sad and 
secular, like the noise and contention, the traffic, jobbing and 
bidding of the market place brought into "the house of prayer." 
The Master, the Son of Man, of Nazareth, would not suffer that 
men with men should trade and chaffer in the temple courts for 
gain; nay, but he made the whip of cords, we read, and drove 
out the tramcers, and scrupled not to say that their cheapen- 
ing and higgling in the sacred place made it "a den of thieves." 
But how better is it to make the temple noisy with importunate 
prayers than with garulous negotiating? How better to bid and 
barter for heaven with professions, creeds, prostrations, groans 
and cries, than to do hawking and huckstering in the holy aisles 
for profits ? How better to convert religion itself into a merchan- 
dise of satisfactions in due season, than to trade wares for 
present tolls in religious precincts ? 

Beautiful is quiet and peace. Beautiful and holy is a quiet 
and simple spirit in religion, which rises up silently unto prayer, 



76 KELIGlON AND TIME. 

like the sun in the morning unto heavenly noon. And all pure 
and good is religion which is not an anxiety for heaven, but a 
simple trust and love and faithfulness — not "toiling and spin- 
ning" for robes to wear above, but, like the lilies, being lifted up 
in simpleness to rejoice, live and be white in the present light 
of God. 

Have you heard cf the dream she had — 

Theresa the Saintly? 
Come, listen, ye good and had ! 

And heed it not faintly. 

A weird, awful woman she saw, 

And wondered what brought her ; 
In one hand she bore flaming straw, 

In the other hand, water. 

" Where bound? " asked Theresa. " O, tell." 

The answer was given : 
" Theresa, I go to quench hell, 

And then to burn heaven." 

"But why," asked the Saint, " do you make 

So wild an endeavor? " 
" So that men for His own holy sake, 

May love God forever."* 



*Epes Sargent. 



KELIGI0N AND TIME. 
III. 

In two preceding sermons I have spoken of some relations 
of Keligion to the past and, again, to the future. What now 
shall I say of the relation of Religion to the present ? 

The past and future can exercise tyranny over the spirit in 
Religion only together. Neither alone can reign. But crown 
one and instantly comes the other to be crowned as a colleague 
on the throne. 

The past and the future are the same as memory and hope. 
Whoever gives himself to memory till it be a tyrant over him, 
and he live in it, neglecting the things at hand, will welcome 
hope to rule over him on the other side. There can be no other 
relief for him. From the tyranny of the past in memory he will 
find no escape, no comfort, except that hope which is an equal 
and subtle tyranny of the future. For if one give himself to 
the past, and refer his mind, his thoughts, his reverence, his 
religion, faith and revelation of God to the past, he will be void 
of comfort, joy, astonishment and power in the present, because 
he has bound himself to the past and the past is gone, and is not 
here to give him glories and perceptions and knowledge. It is 
fixed and done. No more can it effect him as the waving and 
tidal life of the present will, if he only cast himself on the breast 
of it. The present, however, looks but mean and unprofitable 
and deserted of the spirit to one who fixes his faith and won- 
der on a past history. Therefore, what comfort can he find but 
in looking over this present onward into a future, which then rules 
over him by golden hopes that the likeness of the past will re- 
turn some time? Both memory and hope are most blessed 
powers in us ; but naught is blessed when it has grown a Caesar 



78 RELIGION AND TIME. 

over all else in us. Memories have a great part in happiness,, 
and hopes nourish courage and courage again feeds hope very 
blissfully. But if once memory and hope claim all power, and 
rule us, and we lose ourselves in the indolence of their palmy and 
gorgeous tyranny, the dignity of the present is obscured, and in 
that cloudiness fades the most noble and thrilling part of all living 
and rejoicing. 

I may illustrate by a picture of two kings and a peasant. 
The two kings are sitting in purple robes, idling and toying with 
their ornaments and jewels. Before them stands a peasant, a 
poor man, meanly clad, very sturdy, with a mattock in his hand 
wherewith he toils on this earth. The two kings are looking at 
the rough and ready laborer with lofty and superior smiles, or 
mayhap with contempt. The kings are the past and the future: 
the peasant is the present. If the kings can be stripped of their 
purple pomp and come down from the thrones, the three will be 
found very brotherly and well able to work together. 

Now, that Eeligion must begin with awe of the past, or at 
least soon come thereto, and for a time find best its own counte- 
nance in that awe, I have said;* and that therewith there must grow 
up golden hopes in the future, a heaven of shining promises in the 
sky, also I have said.f These steps in Eeligion seem inevitable ; at 
least, if we may conclude from the histories of all religions. But 
they are primary steps. After the primitive forms and conditions 
have served their end, it is well that they should pass away quiet- 
ly; or, more exactly, it is well that the human mind should go 
on its way in courageous fashion, dropping any props or aids or 
manner of progress which once belonged to it but now are out- 
grown. For the essence of growth is the disuse of things that 
are spent; and a condition of growth is the power to perceive 
when the virtue of anything is spent, thereupon to disuse it and 
put away the weight and encumbrance of it. 

Behold this plainly in the growth of the body. How were 
the body to grow without the instinct to perceive when the virtue 
of food is spent, thereupon to disuse the remains of it and cast 
them forth? 

For other illustration, what if a man should go in frocks 
and knee-stockings all his life because so he dressed as a child, 

* Sermon of Eeligion and Time, I. + Sermon of Religion and Time, II. 



RELIGION AND TIME. 79 

and found it then comely and suitable, and warm enough because 
he could go quickly into the house if he were cold? 

The secret of advance and growth, as I have said, is to dis- 
use what is spent, after well spending it and extracting the virtue 
of it. Wherefore nothing must be thrown away too quickly. 
This indeed seldom happens, and only with the rash and un- 
affectionate. But contrariwise, naught must be too stoutly and 
too long held too, cried up because once it has had a great or 
august virtue, albeit now all the virtue is spent and the husks 
of it are only empty baggage. It were well always to cleave 
stiffly to what once is obtained, says Bicon, " if time stood still; 
which contrariwise moveth so round, that a fro ward retention of 
custom is as turbulent a thing as an innovation ; and they that 
reverence too much old times are but a scorn to the new." Now, 
therefore, as growth is, first, to extract all the virtue of food and 
secondly to disuse it when so it is spent, it follows that we must 
be free in mind, neither chained to the past nor led captive by a 
new order, but large and wise, balancing well, and discerning 
what is spent, or so nigh spent that new things must be made 
ready, " and as the scripture saith, that we make a stand upon 
the ancient way, and then look about us, and discern what is the 
straight and right way, and so walk in it." But instead of this 
wisdom, we behold on all sides those who throw away wildly 
and wastefully the " ancient way" and dump it forth with unsober 
mind at the first tinkle of some new thing which catches their 
fickleness ; but far more we see the numbers of those who hold 
fast to "the ancient way" and will not listen to parting with it, 
though time has " moved round" far past it, and all the virtue 
of it has been extracted long since. 

So it is with religion which rests itself on the past, and 
builds its authority on historical events and persons, and thereup- 
on also spies forward into the coming time, conceiving of a new 
golden age and of happy rewards in a future heaven. This is 
the very ancient way, the primitive steps of religion, and time 
has " moved round" far beyond them. What then happens if 
this ancient and venerable manner of religion be continued after 
the virtue of it is spent, when the proper era of it has gone by 
and time has moved beyond it ? 

Consider. This manner of religion dwells on a past glory as 



80 EELIGION AND TIME. 

the source of faith and on a future glory as the reward of faith. 
What can result therefrom after long process ? When the mind 
so has gathered knowledge that it should be beyond and above 
these thoughts — what-can result but that the present shall be made 
barren to our minds and hearts ? And surely this is a very sad re- 
sult ; if the past and the future have nought to do for men but to 
make the present barren and dead, while we feed on memories 
and expectations, it is sad indeed. If religion be so needfully 
a child of the past as to its sanctions, and of the future as to its 
rewards, that the present lies between blank, unhallowed, unvisi- 
ted of heaven, it is very sorrowful. Yet this is the result. 

Attend first to miracles to see one way in which this result 
comes about. Eeligion is made to build itself on marvels and 
signs in a past epoch. Now, at first this does no harm, because 
similar miracles are supposed to be in the present also. The 
primitive mode of thought continues long and science grows but 
slowly, The same wonder-working visits of God which estab- 
lished the religion in the beginning are conceived as still occur- 
ing. Wherefore the present will seem as divine as the past. 
But at last such things are known not to be in the present, and 
no longer to be looked for. Science lifts up the idea of order 
and law, and thenceforth the miracles flee like rosy morning 
twilight before the full light of day in which men go forth to 
their labors. This knowledge being attained, if religion still 
found on miraculous deeds and signs, as vouchsafements from 
heaven in the past, divinity will seem perforce less imminent and 
present now than then in the old days when God walked with 
men and worked his wonders. And so does it seem indeed. 
Such is very sadly the effect of the adoration of the past in re- 
ligion. Awe and joy in the present vanish. Far in the East 
are all the colors of the heavenly communications, miraculous 
incident, angelic exaltations. But here there is no Emmanual ; 
he comes not, we are in a barren land ; we must look far west- 
ward to a time when he shall come again and once more reveal 
glory. 

The Northern myths of Europe contain a good, and even 
a moving example of this effect in religion. Among the Norse- 
men there was a tradition of a golden age of peace, prosperity, 
exaltation, when men were kind and the iEsir, their gods, full 



RELIGION AND TIME. 81 

of favors unto them. Consequently, the people looked on the 
present as only a bitter conflict soon to overwhelm gods and men 
in ruin. After this overthrow a new earth was to rise from the 
ocean, with new men to triumph in the immortal presence of 
Balder, the Beautiful. More reasonable, and perhaps on a 
higher plane in this matter, than the Christians, the Norsemen 
by no means dreamed of a ruin of earth alone. What; the 
iEsir ruled, could not be desolated save with their rain also. 
The gods too must be swallowed up in the darkness, if they 
could not prevent the darkness. In the new order a mighty 
Spirit, higher than the JEsir, was " to reveal himself to rule over 
the world through all eternity." 

The history of Jesus is a like example. As long as the 
Apostles had the Master with them, they seem to have said little 
about the future, because they felt the present charged with the 
divine. But when Jesus became a memory and the heavenly 
witness seemed removed, then arose at once the dreams of the 
second advent, which have continued to excite men to the present 
day. And as a political element, at first very strong, dropped 
from Christianity, all the more it looked both backward and far 
forward. The past was filled with the light of the life of Jesus, 
wonderful and great ; the future with corresponding expecta- 
tions, to be imaged only in crystal arches and golden streets. Be- 
tween, stood the present, unhallowed, deserted, blank, bleak and 
alienated, — and still so it stands " a vale of tears," a desert land, 
a de\il's field, say the churches — a waste of woe of which only 
the edges far on either side cling with fingers of sand to a living 
green. 

Consider, again, another way in which results a barrenness 
of the present from that manner of religion which builds on the 
past and thence projects into the future. By such religion, 
this world and our life is overflowed with contempt and brought 
to a shabby and mean fame. Under the influence of the past- 
look and the future-look in religion, which leaves the present 
unrespected and unhallowed, practical life is degraded and daily 
duties are abused. Now, this may happen in two ways. 

First, life may become sordid, selfish, luxurious. The pres- 
ent is not grand ; only the past. Therefore the present is not 
rousing; only the future. No awe of life, of present responsibil- 



82 EELIGION AND TIME. 

ity, of the greatness of opportunity, of the glory of labor, of the 
dignity of improvement, of the claim of all on each one — no such 
awe is like to arise in a time marked, if so I may speak, by a ces- 
sation of divinity, — God having been wonderfully present in the 
past and to be so with equal glory in the future, but here not vis- 
ible nor working glories, but only ruling, if so I may say, at sec- 
ond hand, like a traveling landlord or a monarch afar off. No such 
thought of the present will tend to breed heroes, reformers, sis- 
ters of mercy, pure poets, soldiers of freedom, or the patient 
faithful who toil unwitnessed and unsung; no, but luxury and 
ease, self-indulgence, aimlessness, wanton uselessness, tyranny. 
For the present then is not sacred — only the miraculous past ; 
nor calls and stirs up the soul — only the future heaven. 

Or, again, the present may be left bare and unhallowed by 
another kind of evil, an anchorite contempt for the world and the 
body. This spirit in the name of religion despises the good work 
of God. I would not put this offence on the level of that other 
fruit of an unhallowed present, namely, the wanton plunging into 
pleasures ; but it is very bad and has wrought much evil. Poss- 
ibly there is as much defilement of the divine creation in con- 
temning it and using it not at all, as in rioting in it and using it 
ill. Before we can help to make the world better by so much as 
one small step, we must love it as it is, and not believe it a devil's- 
wile. 

Whether by the first way of despising the present, as a time 
worth no more than for wanton and selfish pleasuring or inglori- 
ous ease, or by the second way, a contempt of the world and the 
body as mere beggarly flesh, the religion whose life is of the past, 
whose desire is of the future, will cast an unhallowing beam on 
the life of the present. Yet not so aught it to be. Not so is God 
to be known. Not so will life be lifted up or religion be graced. 
Bather with all its voices, all its preachers and choirs," religion 
should sing with the poet, 

" Paradise and groves 
Elysian, Fortunate Fields, * * ,: 

* * * why should they be 

A history only of departed things, 
Or a mere fiction of what never was? 
For the discerning intellect of man, 
When wedded to this goodly universe 
In love and holy passion, shall find these 



RELIGION AND TIME. 83 

A simple produce of the common day. 
— I, long before the blissful hour arrives, 
Would chant, in lonely peace, the spousal verse 
Of this great consumation ; and, by words 
Which speak of nothing more than what we are, 
Would I arouse the sensual from their sleep 
Of death, and win the vacant and the vain 
To noble raptures !" 

It will not be astray if the growth of religion be denned as 
the process of the elevation of the present to divinity. Here 
must I fix the very seat of religion, in the dignity of the present 
moment. I look back for the growth and beginning of religion 

this is no more than history ; but here, in this very time for 

its authority.* I look forward for the greater moral triumphs 
and more devout beauty of religion — this is no more than right- 
eous hope ; but here, in this very time, for its sanctions, its virtue, 
its excellence. Yea, I will say its virtue and excellence even if 
there were no future. For were it nothing to be one of Rabbi 
Jehosha's angels? 

"Rabbi Jehosha used to say 
That God made angels every day, 
Perfect as Micbael and the rest 
First brooded in dotation's nest, 
Whose only office was to cry 
Hosanna ! once and then to die ; 
Or rather with life's essence blent, 
To be led home from banishment. 



Rabbi Jehosha had the skill 

To know that Heaven is in God's will ; 

And doing that, though for a space 

One heart-beat long, may win a grace, 

As full of grandeur and of glow 

As Princes of the Chariot know." 

How pure, how religious the faith which glows with the divine 
candescence of self-forgetfulness ! It is supreme content with 
God, and a quietude of love. Oh! let my soul say, — " This life 
is good, a great delight, an excellence, a blessing. I rejoice that 

♦While religion never looks to the past for authority when it has come to its 
fulness, yet always it iooks behind or back in a sense, " underneath us," to ,; the 
everlasting aims." Thus it does by its nature ; for religion is that sentiment, 
awe, love, which "binds us back" to our source But this is a past always touch- 
ing the present and involved in the present, For it is not a religious thought 
that we were made once and done with; but that we are perpetually of one 
Source, from whom we came, in the mystery of time, but of whom we come con- 
tinually, and " in him live and move aud have our being. And this is the direct 
relationship of each spirit in itself, with no dependence on mediation in past 
or present. See Sermons I and II in this volume , pp 5 and 13 to 20. 



84 EELIGION AND TIME. 

I have lived. Are my past years nothing? And this very 
moment when I rejoice in the sweetness I have had, still sweeter 
to the last with the tenderness of reminiscence, is all this noth- 
ing, that I should repine if there were no more? I ask not 
what is in store for me, whether in love thou appoint more or 
in equal love now make an end. My spirit is overpowered 
with fifty years of loving-kindness in a universe passing and re- 
passing with incessant God. It is good that I am what I am; 
and whatever thou ordainest is good, — yea the hest!" 

This attitude of soul is as perfect in ethics as in religion. 
Its moral excellence lies in its undivided emphasis on virtue. 
Moral worth is lifted up therein by reason of its own divine right. 
Too long has virtue been a pack-horse at the truck of salvation. 
But the test of virtue is disinterestedness. Nothing is virtuous 
which is a managing for admisson to palaces above. Morality 
of itself is commanding, imperative, sovereign, divine. It needs 
no sanctions. It dates from no epoch, nor points to any object. 
My vast faith, indeed, is that in dying we perish not, but live. 
Yet, whether we live after the death of the body or not, still it is 
better to be virtuous than vicious, kind than cruel, forgiving than 
revengeful; better to build up the body a holy sacrifice, than a 
profane altar of unhallowed rites; Better to expand the wings 
of the. spirit than to flutter our day in impotence. Love, honor, 
truth, integrity, benevolence are good in themselves and now. 
Another life increases not their moral dignity anywhere nor their 
value here. Therefore, wait we with a loving quietness, having 
the one thing needful, which is the goodness of God witnessing 
within us, to give us knowledge of the good, that it is good. 

Meantime, 

" O wealth of thought beyond all bound ! 

Eternity each moment given ! 
What plummet may the Present sound? 

Who promises & future heaven?" 

At this moment creation culminates; not in the past, for it 
has been ever a-doing; not in the future, wherein not yet appears 
what we shall be; but now creation is at its height in God, and 
every instant it is finishing in him. Behold this plainly on the 
earth, — in the earth itself, which never was so lovely, never so free 
from roaring tempest and convulsions and fire and ice, in all its 



RELIGION AND TIME. 85 

seons of preparation, as now it is; in man, who never was so delicate 
in face and form, never so kingly in apprehension, never so sound 
in health, nor so wide in love and joy, as now he is; in animals 
and plants, all living creatures, which have been arising and 
refining and beautifying for vast aeons, and never were so fair 
in form and nature, as now they are, — and by man's care, which 
is involved in God's care, they grow richer and fairer continu- 
ally. Behold the same also in the infinite heavens, where 
" worlds without number lie in His bosom like children." What 
creations and abodes, beginning, growing, mid-way made, finished, 
ending, must space hold! What vastness, what inconceiva- 
bleness, what life and effluence — -all now at height in God, and 
never ceasing. Creation is not an act, but action, "new every 
morning and fresh every evening." When I awake, that in- 
stant creation is new and infinite, done for me. 

It is certain that there never was so much knowledge of God 
as now, and never so many open ways to know of him as now, 
when the passing instant completes the record of his providence, 
and each soul can add its own experience to the gathered past. 
The past is the development of knowledge, which by necessity 
always culminates just now ; and the immanent order which reigns, 
forbids that any time should seem of more religious moment 
than any other, or more holy or authoritative to feeling or 
thought than that last moment which is forever here and finishes 
for the instant the Kevelation of God. 

The record of experience which we call the past is the found- 
ation of knowledge. The sum of knowledge which the present is, 
is the home of religion. To religion the past is no more than 
the time when other men were religious; the future, the time 
when the children's children shall be religious. Keligion lives, 
and is determined by what is known of God, — those thoughts 
about Him m which the forgoing living and learning of men 
at this moment culminates. Before this the spirit bows as revealing 
the Infinite, Eternal One who has upheld all the past, and now 
no more than in the past, and no less, and forever the same, rules 
" with the glory of a Father. 

Not by reason of the soul's knowledge of any ways of God 
in the past, nor by reason of any desires of favor from him in 
the future, but by reason of its ideal of him, who is the culmina- 



86 RELIGION AND TIME. 

tion not only of the past, but of its own life, does the spirit wor- 
ship and pray. By reason of all its feeling of his immanent love, 
of his supreme providence in justice and moral worth, of the 
marvelous order which is the shadow of his perfection on nature, 
of perfect holiness and truth, of perfect power, of his inward rev- 
elation and the soul's own sufficiency to itself through the divine 
communication; by reason, perhaps, most of all, of that ineffa- 
bleness which our own being hath in him, which conceals him 
by his very nearness to us, and brings a measure of imperfection 
into all human dispositions or expression unto him, save a silence, 
a wonder of adoration — by reason of this the spirit worships and 
prays, with no thought of any past or future in the presence of the 
transcendent mystery from which time itself proceeds. Re- 
ligion is our disposition of devotion toward the Supreme and In- 
finite One. But what he is, he is forever. Religion by its very 
terms, as relation between him and me, knows therefore noth- 
ing but the present moment, the impending now. We no more 
look back for Revelation than for Protection. He who, at this 
moment, shadows our feet with himself, at this moment also in- 
vokes us by the authority of the last issue of His Eternal Revel- 
ation. 

Here then, we see what high and pure religiousness is — in 
two parts : First it is the thought and apprehension of God now : 
Secondly, and following therefrom, it is the glorifying of all life's 
deep things and all our duties now, of every small and obscure 
faithfulness, as in the presence of God, and as our post in his 
order. What can the greatest star do more than hold its 
place, and know it is its place in God, and beam therein? And 
whoso but feeds a love-lamp in the window of his eye, or gives 
forth a voice of kindly cheer, doth no less; 

"And God will listen amid the throng 
For his one breath of perfect song, 
That, in its simple human way, 
Says all the Hosts of Heaven can say" 



HE THAT WAS TO COME. 

" I that speak unto thee am he."— John iv., 26. 

I have noticed that in reading some poem or some scene in 
a story, or in being in some place or presence, we become im- 
pressed with the greatness and value of goodness. We say, 
''Goodness is the best, the most worthy thing; it is great and 
beautiful." This is always a sudden experience. We are reading 
or listening for amusement perhaps, or for information in some 
manner, not at all for moral enthusiasm or instruction. Sud- 
denly the page or place is illuminated ; almost we stamp our foot 
on the ground, like Galileo, exclaiming aloud, "It is true ! It is 
not a mistake! Character is the great and perfect value! Holi- 
ness, Truth, Beauty, are the worthy things !" In his "Way 
toward the Blessed Life," Fichte says, "The enjoyment of a 
single hour passed happily in the pursuit of art or science, far 
outweighs a whole life-time of sensual enjoyment; and before the 
picture of this blessedness, the merely sensuous man, could it be 
brought home to him, would sink in envy and dismay." But so 
far as any are only creatures of sensation and seekers after 
pleasures, it is continually brought home to them that there is a 
better way of life, a transcendent nobility which shines when at 
all it is seen and at once is known to be the one real undying 
joy. And especially in so far as. we know better than we do, 
we read or see or hear something which gives us suddenly such 
a rapturous sense how worthy, great, beautiful and strong faith- 
fulness is, and how real religion is, and how pure and lovely is 
devotion, that we exclaim, "It is good for us to be here; we will 
build tabernacles and stay here forever." You will find that 
some eloquence, poem, music, in which one person can see only 
ordinary expression, common imagination, no large beauty, will 
lift another to the seventh heaven. This is because something 



88 HE THAT WAS TO COME. 

in his experience vibrates to those strings, and the piece suddenly 
lets in heaven on his sight, his love, his resolution. Sometimes 
this sudden sense of the greatness and beauty of holiness is 
roused by places or persons. The holy quiet and tender associa- 
tions of a church may awake it, or such a heavenly countenance 
as sometimes one beholds in aged persons, or the innocence of a 
little child. "We meet such a vision of goodness and behold the 
beauty suddenly, as if in turning a corner on some common 
errand, we beheld a grand and noble statue in a niche, not there 
when we passed the spot a half-hour before. 

Here, in illustration, are some fugitive lines which I have 
met in many different places, named "Tired Mothers": 

A little elbow leans upon your knee— 

Your tired knee that has so much to bear — 
A child's dear eyes are looking lovingly 

Erom underneath a thatch of tangled hair. 
Perhaps you do not heed the velvet touch 

Of warm moist fingers holding yours so tight, 
You do not prize the blessing overmuch— 

You are almost too tired to pray to-night. 

But it is blessedness ! A year ago 

I did not see it as I do to-day— 
We are so dull and thankless, and too slow 

To catch the sunshine till it slips away. 
And now it seems surpassing strange to me 

That while I wore the badge of motherhood 
I did not kiss more oft and tenderly 

The little child that brought me only good. 

And if, some night, when you sit down to rest, 

You miss the elbow on your tired knee — 
This restless curly head from off your breast, 

This lisping tongue that chatters constantly ; 
If from your own the dimpled hands had slipped, 

And ne'er would nestle in your palm again, 
If the white feet into the grave had tripped — 

I could not blame you for your heart-ache then. 

I wonder that some mothers ever fret 

At little children clinging to their gown ; 
Or that the footprints, when the days are wet, 

Are ever black enough to make them frown. 
If I could find a little muddy boot, 

Or cap, or jacket, on my chamber floor — 
If I could kiss a rosy, restless foot 

And hear it patter in my house once more ; 

If I could mend a broken cart to-day, 

To-morrow make a kite to reach the sky, 
There is no woman in God's world could say 

She was more blissfully content than II 
But ah ! the dainty pillow next my own 

Is never rumpled by a shining head ; 
My singing birdling from its nest has flown— 

The little boy I used to kiss is— dead 1 



HE THAT WAS TO COME. 89 

A man I am acquainted with carried these lines in his 
wallet, and never he could read them without running to take all 
his children in his arms with such an unwonted solemnity of fond- 
ness that the little ones looked wonderingly while they returned 
the caresses. I know one, too, who never can read a particular 
passage in "David Copperfield" without instantly going in search 
of his wife to confer a look or word that may add to her happi- 
ness. 

The principle herein is that God sets on us such respons- 
ibility that each one must say to his neighbor the words of Jesus 
at the well of Sychar. Like the Samaritan we go with a pitcher 
to draw water or after some other business, and beside the well 
or the work- bench or in the business house, we find a wonderful 
stranger. Perhaps we have seen the person before; no matter. 
Perhaps a thousand times before; it is the same. At that 
moment he is the stranger from heaven. He tells us all that 
ever we did; he throws a sudden light over the future; he 
arouses in us a sense how majestic, strong and beautiful sincere 
goodness is. Happy for us if we understand that this is the 
language by which he says to us directly, "I that speak unto thee 
am he." He is the prophetic He. We behold a miracle of the 
Divine Providence. The book, the picture, the voice, the person, 
at that instant have authority from God. To you, that person 
is "He that was to come," your Messiah, your Saviour, your 
Confessor. Daily I see more clearly that we are placed here 
with a mission ordained for us. 'Tis not needful that we know 
it, further than to keep clean, do well and defend the divine 
counsels in the conscience from admixture with a vagrant will. 
In that we are commissioned. When we meet the person to 
whom we are sent, they feel such motion within, such arising of 
joy, faith and purpose on that instant, as is a declaration from 
heaven as plainly as if we said, "I that speak unto thee am he." 
You that speak to me are he — I that speak to you am he — if so 
be that there be anything in us at the moment which is God's 
providing of grace for us by one another. 

I had some little business with a friend, in ending which I 
said, "That now is finished for the present, and I am obliged 
to you for your goodness." He answered, "Perhaps I am obliged 
to you for my goodness," The words startled me, I could not 



90 HE THAT WAS TO COME. 

shake them off. I perceived we are all obliged to each other for 
our goodness. Each to each is "He that was to come*" in those 
moments of unconscious testimony when we are God's providence 
to some one and fill some soul with celestial messages. For 
what could he more authoritative, more divine, than the im- 
pression at that instant made on my spirit? 

Often in the mimic life of the drama this inspiring quality 
is displayed powerfully; many a player, great or humble, has 
been "He that was to come," a providential man to some among 
the spectators, he being for the instant transparent to beauty and 
goodness which shine through him as through a glass. 

I once attended a play, taking a friend with me, the play 
including a dance or ballet in one scene. While the lithe dancers 
were weaving their mazy patterns, as if a gorgeous tapestry of 
which their bright costumes were the threads and their lissom 
bodies the shuttles, my duller sense beheld it only as one sight, 
singling out no particular element thereof; but my companion 
had nicer perception; she said to me, "There is one face among 
those dancing girls I want you to look at, it is so sweet and child- 
like, as innocent as a babe's." I looked and saw. I perceived 
also how solicitous the young thing was about the dance, how 
very watchful as to her part and the procession of the intricate 
figures. It was plain that she saw neither people, nor lights 
nor scenes, nor had any gleam of the purple and gold in which 
she marched — knowing only the dance in which she had her part 
to maintain unless the whole should be overthrown. Somehow, 
from that moment, I ceased to follow the weaving pattern. I 
beheld only that one living shuttle of the tapestry. It was as if 
nature as an artist had suddenly descended crying, "This is 
'prentice work; I discern one figure fit to stand, but thus and 
thus I efface the remaining" — with two or three broad sweeps of 
the brush obliterating the scene by a neutral background on 
which the one form was left shining. 

Have you not noticed in theatres how a humane sentiment, 
or even a common moral platitude, spoken in a sincere manner 
and with circumstance, will win applause ? 

Nor shall I forget, as long as I can remember aught beauti- 
ful, one little simple act which I witnessed in that mimic life, 
which has a residence in me, like a beautiful picture or a strain 



'he that was to come. 91 

of clear music. It was done by E. L. Davenport, a high master 
in his art, who long ago took his flight by death to the unseen 
kingdom, out of which, I do believe, shone through him the 
beauty that made him to me at that instant ''Him that was 
to come." He was playing' Brutus in Shakespeare's glorious 
drama of Julius Caesar. He had arrived before the plains of 
Philippi, on which the armies were to fight the next day. It was 
night. The arrangements were made, the plans laid, the last 
words said between the officers; Cassius, Titinius and Messala 
departed, leaving Brutus alone with his young page, Lucius, 
whom he asked to play for him a little on his lute, but added: 

Bru I trouble thee too much, but thou art willing. 

Luc. It is my duty, sir 

Bru. I should not urge thy duty past thy might, I know young bloods look 

for a time of rest. 
Luc. I have slept, my lord, already. 
Bru. It is well done, and thou shalt sleep again; I will not hold thee long ; If I 

do live, I will be good to thee. 

Then the boy touched his instrument and began a song; 
but tired Nature was too much for the young muscles. The song 
became slow, wandered from time and tune, and ceased at last 
after one or two mutterings, as the wind goes down. The boy 
slept. Brutus, listening, said, " This is a sleepy tune," then 
turning and seeing the boy asleep, exclaimed: 

"O murderous slumber 
Lay'st thou thy leaden mace upon my boy 
That plays thee music? Gentle knave, good night; 
I will not do thee so much wrong to wake thee. 
If thou dost nod, thou break'st thy instrument. 
I'll take it from thee " 

Here the gentle hero rose, softly approached the sleeping 
boy and with tender care unlocked his hands from the lute. 
Then, for a moment he stood still, contemplating silently the 
child sinking deeper and deeper into slumber; at last, with a slow 
tenderness of manner, he unclasped from his neck the cloak 
which he had just put on, and carefully folded it about the boy 
to cover him from the night air. This done he added gently: 

"Good boy, good night. 
Let me see, let me see,— is not the leaf turned down 
Where I left reading? Here it is, I think." 

It was when Brutus covered the boy with his cloak that the 
human nature of all persons so was touched that the simple act 



92 HE THAT WAS TO COME. 

drew forth applause, because it was beautiful. I added then a 
new chapter to my scriptures which never I can read without 
that act and picture rising before me, and my soul is stirred. 

Sometimes how unexpectedly this heavenly light beams, 
breaking from some other place as humble as the manger. At 
one time having a very beautiful alto-relief cast in plaster from 
the work of a sculptor of great merit, I wished to have it painted 
so as to preserve the surface from injury, but painted so 
delicately as not to obscure any of the delicate lines and touches 
of the artist's chisel wherein dwelt the exquisite expressiveness 
of the work. I selected for the task an old man who was a sign- 
painter. I knew nothing of his skill with the brush, but I had 
seen him and he had impressed me as conscientious. Believing 
myself unknown to him, I carried him the cast and stated my 
wish. He looked long and reverently at the beautiful work of 
art, finally saying that in common he would refuse such a task, 
but if I were pleased to trust him he would try. At the appoint- 
ed time I visited his little shop, to find my valued object painted 
to my utmost satisfaction. Praising the work and thanking him, 
I asked the price, saying that I would be glad to pay well and 
add my thanks thereto. He said that he would value the thanks, 
but, if I pleased, he would take no pay. Much surprised, I said, 
"Dear Sir, you took this task, as I readily could see, with some 
reluctance, and you have performed it in a masterly way. I 
know well the time and pains that go to such a work ; you must 
permit me to reward you accordingly." "No," he said, "I want 
no pay; the work itself was pay; it was a labor of love." "True," 
I answered. "So is all good work. Nevertheless, you must not 
give away your skill and time, for no one should wish to receive 
them for nothing." "But," he answered, "you made your return 
beforehand." Seeing my great surprise, he reminded me of his 
coming once to an office in which I was employed. "Yes," I 
said, "it was the sight of you then that led me to you for this 
painting; but I supposed not you would know me." "Perhaps 
you can recall," he said, that the chief officer had turned me off 
roughly or at least indifferently, and pushed my business aside. 
Finding I could get no attention, I was going out mortified and 
hurt, when you came to me and said a few words that put things 
straight in my mind if not in my affairs. Now, you must take 



HE THAT WAS TO COME. 93 

this painting as an old man's gratitude." Much moved and with 
a sense of the presence I stood in, as if suddenly I knew it to be 
of God, I accepted the gift. The sculptor, when he afterward be- 
held it, exclaimed with pleasure, saying that no one of his works 
ever had been so exquisitely and conscientiously finished with 
the brush. 

I can not forget that workman, nor cease to think of my ex- 
perience in his presence with reverence. I often turn unto him 
in mind. I wonder where he is. I wonder what his life had 
been. No doubt he had sorrows; I feel them. No doubt joys; I 
am glad of them. He was old; I wonder if he has now opened 
a new sense to beatific certainties of which I dimly dream or 
hope. Be all that as it may, I know that in that man in that 
little poor shop I met one who was to come to me. I stood face 
to face with the providence of God giving me a celestial sight 
through that servant of his who thought only to offer an old 
man's gratitude. N 

'Tis not even necessary to see the one who is to come to you. 
From very far away, or from long past time, he will raise a tumult 
in your soul by which he says, "1 that speak unto thee am he." 
I met a record of a life which stirred me mightily when in- 
telligence from the Sandwich Islands brought the news of the 
death of Eagsdale, the governor of the mournful settlement on the 
Island of Moloka. He was an orator of great influence in the 
kingdom, bred to the law, speaking English and Hawaiian with 
equal ease. One night, sitting in his office studying an absorb- 
ing law case, the chimney fell suddenly from his lamp; he picked 
it up quickly to replace it, forgetting that it was heated intensely. 
He remembered the heat immediately, but oh! he felt it not. 
The hot glass was the same to his touch as a cool and pleasant 
object. He looked at his hands ; there was no sign of a burn. 
Many times he repeated the experiment with the same result. 
How he faced that fatal sign in the stillness, the darkness, the 
solitude, that terrible message written veritably on his body by a 
hand of flame, as on a wall, suddenly, — I have not read — I know 
not that there was a human eye or ear there present to perceive. 
He sat repeating the experiment which doomed him, the favored, 
the prosperous, the powerful, to a loathsome banishment from 
the face of healthy human beings. He knew that he had the 



94 HE THAT WAS TO COME. 

leprosy or elephantiasis, the terrible and incurable disease of the 
skin which prevails in tropical places. By this fearful malady, 
the skin is thickened and loses its sensitiveness. Medical 
authority soon confirmed the apprehensions of the afflicted man, 
and at once he informed the civil officers of his condition. But 
no one wished to move in his arrest according to law. Finding 
that his eminence and character was respected to that great de- 
gree, he delivered himself up to the authorities and was sent to 
the Island of Moloka where victims of the disease are secluded. 
He was made governor of this sad community of eight hundred 
persons and held the office when he died. He took up his fate 
with so much goodness and so sweet a spirit, so devoted himself 
to the mournful people whose wretchedness he shared, ruled so 
wisely, made so many reforms and diffused so much relief about 
him, that the sufferers loved and revered him as a father. I 
have read a like story more lately of the life of a Boman priest 
on the same sad island. 

How little we know of life ? When some form of it at once 
so strange and so noble sweeps by us on wings, to be "He that 
was to come to us," how we wonder and gaze with awe! 

If this be the way of Providence, so great a wonder of the moral 
government of God, that each one thus is made "Him that was 
to come" and endowed with a saving mission unto others, which 
silently and unconsciously he is fulfilling to the blessing and 
salvation of the persons appointed to meet him, surely in this do 
we find laid on us a very grave and high responsibility — the 
11 blessing of responsibility," as a noble soul used to say. The 
ancient fable of the fall of Lucifer has certainly this much of 
truth, that naught can be possible unless its opposite be so. The 
creature made for light, on that account may elect the darkness. 
A gigantic mountain, whereon a man being perched he may see 
the world, if it crumble or come down in land-slides or in spring 
torrents when the trees that sheltered the soil have been cut off, 
delivers terrible ruin upon the plain below, spreading a des- 
ert of inhospitable rocks where were fertile gardens, so the Son 
of God, who is lifted up to such a height of providential import 
and is sent as "He that is to come" to many who await the 
coming, from that height may cast himself with a terrible fall 
into gulfs "as deep as heaven is high.' , He may be so unfaith- 



HE THAT WAS TO COME. 95 

fid, so errant, so unmindful of that Messianic birth which he had 
and of the mission of glory which he has, that he may be only a 
useless loiterer by the way, or even a teacher of evil things, a 
minion of evil. It behooves us to look to our characters. For it 
is by this, by what we are and do show ourselves to be continu- 
ally to that infallible sense of human beings by which they know 
the holy and the true, and detect counterfeit or base alloy, by this 
it is, that we are ordained sons of God to all other sons of him, 
especially to the wild and wayward ; by this that we must fulfil 
the appointed mission and meet our fellow being to be known 
by him as "He that is to come to him." If we be simply good 
and true, upright, just, kindly, gentle, modest, chaste, unselfish, 
devoted, humane, sincere, — this is that "virtue" that will "go 
out of us" when but the hem of our garment sweep some one or 
be seized a moment by some one to whom we are "He that was 
to come," by the divine witness of a cure wrought or health im- 
parted, while we are thinking of other things or persons in the 
throng, or beyond it of other ties and duties. I think I see it so 
clearly that I dare to say I am sure of this, that God does elect, 
appoint and send each one of us as truly as ever any saint or 
prophet of old, whether in Palestine or any other place, to be 
his sons and to bear witness of him, to speak, heal and bless. 
And if we bear the witness, then we are not left alone. By ways 
that no knowledge can explain and no experience exhaust, God 
testifies unto us; as Jesus said to the cavilers, who bad him re- 
buke his friends because they were singing with triumph and 
crying out in their joy, "I tell you that if these should hold their 
peace, the stones would immediately cry out." 

But this much certainly always we may do, — while knowing 
that it is by what we are in our hearts that we become the or- 
dained servants and messengers of God who opens passages for 
our influence when we know it not — this much we may attend 
to, viz: to be at pains to offend not any one, by bad example or 
covert sneer at good things, or bold irreverence, or worst of all, 
by ill talk and vile suggestion in which many appear to find their 
only humor and knowledge. It is a vile thing to make oneself a 
sink or sewer of infectious filth ; but it is abominable and devilish 
when much has collected and rotted together, to spread it over 
the earth. If a man will dig in himself a cess-pool for corrupted 



96 HE THAT WAS TO COME. 

things, let him observe the rules whereby we order the escape- 
pipes of dwellings. For no one builds a receptacle for disgust- 
ing matters, forthwith to turn them out again, but to keep them 
hidden and harmless. So let whoever inclines to heap up such 
matters within him and defile the purity of his mind, at least 
keep them pent up in that pit which he has made of himself, that 
their black vapors darken not the sky and infect not the common 
air of life. Consider, fellow man, that if your companion of the 
moment relish your loose talk, your gross story, your wanton al- 
lusion, you poison a creature already sick; but if he relish it not, 
'tis a sad and painful wrong to humiliate a clean spirit. You 
take a mean advantage. For what can one do whom thus you 
dishonor? Jt is hard to turn and walk away unanswering. So 
to do seems rude; it expresses a censure of you which he may 
shrink from. 'Tis a mean advantage, and dishonorable, — 
as if you seized some weaker person and tied him up brutally 
before shocking sights. 

But turn from this picture. There are two pictures hang- 
ing on opposite walls. I have looked for a few moments at the 
one behind me. It is a picture of night, having no sun in it, nor 
moon or stars even, nor any light but the red eye of a thief's 
lantern. Turn again to the other. It is a picture of light and 
sunshine, it has a broad highway in it, shaded with arching trees 
in which birds sing, and higher up, with great white clouds like 
silver fleece, rolling in the brilliant blue. Along the highway 
many people walk and children play, culling the flowers. The 
people seem to be in earnest talk, cheerful but full of intention. 
What is noticeable is the look of eager questioning in all the eyes 
and in the parted lips — plainly in all the same question, 
"Where is he that was to come?" And to that question God 
ordains every man in that company to answer to his neighbor, 
"I that speak unto thee am he." 



ADMIRATION, HOPE, LOVE. 

" Now abide Faith, Hope, Love ; and the greatest of these is Love.— I Cor., 
xiii, 13. 

" We live by Admiration, Hope and Love." — Wordsworth. 

All Paul's writings show plainly that these words must be 
understood according to the ideas of religion which were current 
among the Christians. With these ideas Paul's soul was on fire. 
To him Faith meant belief that Christ was the appointed Savior 
of mankind, the messenger and teacher from heaven whose death 
was a propitiatory sacrifice by which all the common sacrifices 
of the temple were done away, and paid in one forever, and the 
world saved. Hope meant confidence in a blissful hereafter, a 
home in the kingdom of heaven, soon to come, a place in the 
glorious army of the saved secured by the sacrifice of Christ to 
those who embraced it; for the dead should arise, to come back 
in glory, and those who were not dead should be caught up into 
the air and changed in the twinkling of an eye to meet Christ 
and share his triumph. Love meant kindness and tender fellow- 
ship among the brethren ; but also an immense unlimited fellow- 
ship with all men, a devotion to mankind, an enthusiasm for the 
great salvation as offered to all, a wish and a labor to embrace the 
whole world in it. For Paul, though a Jew, by no means would 
hear of any Jewish fold of Grace. Fervent in love and burning 
in words, he announced liberty from the Jewish law and the call- 
ing of the gentiles. And this liberty in Love and Love in lib- 
erty he called greater than the Faith or the Hope! 

Now, for us of course,, the special circumstances have 
vanished. "With them- have gone too the restricted meaning of 
the text. But the words, in a larger sense easily settled on them, 
indeed haunting or hovering over the local and temporary sense 
of them, like a spirit, are grand words. They have a course to 
run world-wide and time-long. 



98 ADMIRATION, HOPE, LOVE. 

Wordsworth has a line which is the same as these words of 
Paul, with the enlarged sense which lapse of centuries, and the 
spiritual growth of the world, supply. The poet says, " We 
live by Admiration, Hope and Love." This is the Pauline three, 
Faith, Hope and Love. For Faith has deep color of awe and 
wonder in it; and Admiration means wonder, especially, in pres- 
ent usage, wonder mingled with pleasing emotions, as approba- 
tion, esteem, love or veneration. To wonder is health, strength, 
joy. If I must let wonder slip at the beck of books, if explana- 
tion dissolve awe, then better the ancient poetry, that peopled 
tree, hill, sod, clouds and waters with living spirits, — so might I 
have visions 

" that should make us less forlorn, 
So might I standing by this pleasant lea 
Behold old Proteus rising from the sea, 
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn." 

But wonder grows with knowledge. For a brute-stare sees 
only the outside; the which may be new, odd, foreign, but never 
wonderful. For all things are like words. New syllables, may be 
strange, but if admirable, 'tis in what they signify. Conceive a 
savage, a bushman, a hottentot, or whatever one may be the 
noblest of all children of the forest, led through a concourse of 
manufactures. There would be astonishment; or if more, a 
perplexed amazement, helpless, bewildered, terrified. But 
astonishment, stupefaction, bewilderment, are not wonder. The 
intelligent and civilized man, especially one who has a trained 
and stored faculty, walks among a prodigious display of nature 
and mankind calmly, joyfully, with a rising exhilaration of 
wonder. Wonder is born of knowledge, especially of knowledge 
so brooded as to bring the mind to life and give not merely ap- 
prehension but comprehension, not information only, but insight 
and power. 

Once I stood with a thoughtful and eloquent preacher look- 
ing at some works of one of the most notable mechanics I ever 
knew, a man of great attainments, a very delicate workman, an 
inventor of rare and facile genius and of scientific knowledge. 
The next Sunday, with the mechanic, I listened to the preacher. 
After the grand sermon the man of handicraft went to the man 
of pen-craft and said he was filled with wonder at the great dis- 



AD MIBATION, HOPE, LOVE. 99 

course, and especially at the sermons from week to week; "not," 
said he, ''so much at this sermon, or any one, for I know the 
power of work and time, and I can conceive how you could bring 
forth such a thing by long labor and slowly and in small num- 
bers ; but how you can be ready with high discourses every week, 
and all so like in fine quality, is a matter of great wonder to me. 
The abundance, efflorescence, the perpetual out-pouring, confounds 
me." Now, it so happened that the preacher, after looking at 
the mechanic's engines, had be'en regarding him with the great- 
est wonder and expressing the same to me. He answered him 
that he looked with a kind of awe on the mechanic's power over 
intractable substance, that he marveled at his endless resources 
of ingenuity, that his skill and fertility were great wonders to 
him, and that the outpouring from his mind of one device after 
another and of engines that moved like life, seemed to him like 
a miracle. Thereon I saw that the root of the mutual wonder of 
these men was an equal appreciation of the cost of an idea, and 
that, knowing and understanding this, each must go wondering 
always at ideas in proportion as they exceeded or varied from his 
own domain of labor. I perceived that there was no health for 
either of them but in admiring the other, with reverence. 

It is happiness and health to wonder at common things, 
that is, to perceive in common and ordinary matters underlying 
laws, meaning, effects, infinite relations. And indeed, if at all 
we are to have the health and life of admiration, we must 
wonder at wayside events. For who has large and adventurous 
things? Great opportunities, imposing spectacles, vast ex- 
periences, grandeur and might, draw near rarely,, and to few. 
With all persons, routine is tame ; many — what else but routine 
have they? Only the few (and pity it is to say so; sometime it 
will be otherwise) float on the ocean or climb majestic mountains, 
or see continents of ice, or travel among strange people, or know 
what the tropics are, or traverse the heavens with the eye of a 
great lens. But the many are not left comfortless. They have 
the resources of wonder within themselves, if so be that they have 
enlarged both mind and feeling. Having no Alps near, and no 
way of journeying to them, have we then no hills unto which to 
lift up our eyes ? Nay, we may go mountain-climbing among 
our neighbors' moral qualities, among common interests of life, 



100 ADMIRATION, HOPE, LOVE. 

wonted facts of experience, familiar expressions of faces, the or- 
dinary substances of daily use, the acknowledged beauties of the 
earth and the uniform sublimity of the sky. For herein are 
heights and depths unexplored. But the explorers must be 
Knowledge, Humility, Admiration. 

To wonder is to put things in their true places, to see them 
as they are, in their unity, not detached but existing one in an 
another, inhering together in one individual majesty. A philos- 
opher pondered on the spectacle of a fly walking on the 
stone pillar of a great cathedral, being occupied wholly with the 
roughness and crevices of the surface of the pillar it walked on. 
Now, it is well to be as the fly to a degree, as indeed we must be, 
and look at things one by one ; but if we put them never again 
together in one thought, as they are in their being, we shall 
not know the temple we live in, under the dome of the sky. 
Wonder becomes worship when we look with awe while before 
our eyes and to our rapt apprehension the One goes forth in the 
Many and the Many return again into the One. 

Hope is the next element of life, according to apostle and 
poet. Paul gives hope a very wide and deep foundation, in an- 
other epistle. He says, in his letter to the Komans (v. 4) 
that we ought to take heart in our troubles, because tribulation 
worketh patience and patience probation, or proving of ourselves 
that we may know what we are, and probation hope. Thus Paul 
seats hope in discipline of character. It is to him a power of 
the soul that grows with the exercise of the soul, with insight, 
perception, exaltation. 

Hope dwells in what some ancient thinkers called the 
"pleroma," fullness, the round heaven of all possibilities, the 
portal of perpetual creation. The past is gone, gone with glories, 
with crowns, triumphs, revelations; but gone, as if no glories or 
triumphs ever were. The present goes while we speak of it. It 
is but lapse, flow, motion, the rush of a stream, the ascent of 
flame, or a pause, as it were, in the eternal ongoing that we may 
note the idea of duty, — a divine pause thereby, and yet a speck, 
a mote in a vast space, a little island beaten by an illimitable 
sea. In the sea are the treasures of mystery, invitation, cour- 
age, majesty. What is the past or the present before the eternity 
and infinity of Hope? But the future comes on without failure 



ADMIRATION, HOPE, LOVE. 101 

or error, becoming every instant the present and forthwith 
swallowed in the past, yet undiminished, the "pleroma " of pos- 
sibilities, where Hope has infinity to shine over, like a sun vast 
enough to be the center of space. 

" In the future thou shalt find 
How far the fact hath left behind 
Thy fondest dreams." 

We live in the future, as apostle and poet say, because, 
though here in the present moment we be stayed with duty, with 
divinity dwelling in the unconditional ought, in the last 
Scripture of all revelation, yet the springs of our life are in the 
ever-becoming. "Hear Israel, — the Eternal is God, the 
Eternal is One." 

"Whether we be young or old, 
Our destiny, our being's heart and home 
Is with infinitude, and only there ; 
With Hope it is, Hope that can never die, 
Effort and expectation and desire, 
And something evermore about to be." 

This it is that holds us, as it has been said of Beethoven's 
music that its great splendor is the rush of it, as it seems, from 
an inexhaustable source, where there is more, more, more, and 
still without end, more. 

Hope is not a wish. We may wish things which we cannot 
have because they are impossible , or it is certain we shall not 
have them. As for example, that we had wings and could float 
in the air like birds, to skim mountain peaks by a delicious 
aerial exercise ; or that we could visit the moon or planets ; or 
that we could have long years of traveling on this earth. But 
Hope is desire assuaged with reason. The reasons maybe external, 
as those for hoping to live from year to year, or to complete some 
work; or internal, in the mind itself, which seems to foresee or 
foref eel something, by force of its own nature ; as the hope of 
an inner development, of the justification of some great dream, 
of the perfection of some sight or thought now dim within us, 
clouded, half-seen, half-heard, but foretelling some great percep- 
tion yet to come. A friend wrote me, "Somehow I seem to my- 
self to be always on the threshold of something much better 
than ever yet 1 have done." 

The more a hope rises inwardly, apart from circumstances, 



102 ADMIRATION, HOPE, LOVE. 

beyond the court of will, the grander the hope is, because it rests 
not on the counting of events but roots in the nature of things. 
Such a hope is the immortal life. Just as Paul's, Faith, 
meaning belief in a special dispensation, is expanded by the poet 
into the grander thought of worship which is intelligent awe and 
wonder confronting creation, so the hope of immortal life is lifted 
from the dramatic triumph of a scheme or of one great person, 
to an inheritance of thought itself, to a hope founded on grounds 
internal and spiritual, asking no report from any outward con- 
dition, accepting indeed all the intimations that rain from the 
heavens on every side, but independent of all and needing only 
the soul's knowledge of itself. Hope is not proof, not sight, but 
wish with grounds. When sublime, as when the wish is vast 
and the grounds inward, like the hope of everlastingness, it is 
not to be pushed away jauntily or sullenly or defiantly, for that 
will be but a pedant's vanity or a clown's ignorance or a lord- 
ling's pride. It is true, indeed, that we may take this mighty hope 
and glory unfairly, thereby stripping duty of its dignity, its 
design and defence ; true that so it may be described as to make 
it no more than the ravishing or horrible reward of this life's 
deeds, the indolent refuge of virtue or the idle torment of vice. 
But this is abuse and defamation. Still it endures, that dream 
which arises in us when sense is shut, which, awaking, we 
remember in spite of sense; it is still that hope whose ground 
of' existence is wholly in the soul itself and asks no leave to be 
from any outward things, nor from any such dreads extinction. 
It has the mark of majesty. It is a hope worthy of the mind 
and has been a spring of life in high souls. Says a writer, 
"An immortal soul of life, a life kept close to the imperishable, 
knows of the deathlessness, and none other can know * * * 
All in general can see; but many, it is evident from countless 
testimonies, cannot see what there is to be seen. * * * It is only 
when one is not conscious of himself, that he acknowledges a 
possible grave. * * * People ask if they shall live after 
death who have not yet lived at all, and the only answer is, 
Live Nowl 

The third of the elements in which we live according to 
apostle and poet, and by the apostle's words the greatest of the 
three, is Love. It needs no rehearsing that love is an exceeding 



ADMIRATION, HOPE, LOVE. 103 

great joy, the most blissful of all human powers. Love seems 
the faculty which leaps first from God into his creatures; for 
the poor brutes share it with us, even sometimes to its most woe- 
ful ecstasies. Heart-binding deeds are like white-clad priests 
feeding an altar of memory with perpetual flame. Even thought 
and worship draw sweetness from human love. The simple 
pure devotion of loving is the deepest well of blessedness, yea, of 
power, compared to which the privilege of being loved is as 
naught. 

Love is in two kinds; impersonal or human love, which 
surrounds humanity with solicitous interest and sets fire to hero- 
ism; and personal love, of lovers, of friends, of relations, which 
selects few. Belike this love of chosen persons was not in Paul's 
mind when he wrote, but surely it was in the poet's. 

Now, this is to be said, that the second kind of love, the 
love of persons chosen by us, will not be noble, nor have wings 
for the heavens, but plod on the earth meanly, unless the first 
kind, the humane love, be also living in the heart. This it is 
which lifts human love into human resemblance; for it is doubt- 
ful if any man had ever a devotion to another, more perfect than 
some brute creatures have shown. But love which is tender to 
its own sometimes is seen in a nature ferocious and implacable 
toward others, or moved to little pity and no affection by man- 
kind. But it is not very grand to love simply so far as some 
person is one's own. It is noble to love first in a beloved person 
a fairer sight which we have received by him of traits that make 
humanity sicred and draw us devoutly to our race. It is noble, 
too, to be quickened by one love to all other loves, so that by 
our friend we become a friend to man. And, when we think of 
it, how indeed is it possible to love some person nobly if we love 
not the better our human kind which has in every child thereof 
so much that is in his soul whom we love? Or how is it possible 
to be stirred unto anyone with love having a moral worth, an 
ethical reverence and mental communion, if never before we 
have been moved to love and brotherliness by human nature, 
nor adored the heights of virtue where saintly souls, historic or 
obscure, have lived ? Is it any better to love a skinful of bones 
than to cherish a bag of coins — if both only because they are 



104 ADMIRATION, HOPE, LOVE. 

one's own? But if we cherish the body because of a good and 
precious soul therein dwelling, how is this possible if we love not 
the like soul in mankind ? Nay, the poet who utters my text 
recommends even the love (if so we may name the sentiment) of 
natural objects, trees, flowers, brooks, all natural beauties, as a 
source of the refining, elevating and strengthening of love in us. 
He says : 

" The man 
Who in this spirit communes with the forms 
Of nature, who with understanding heart 
Doth know and love such objects as excite 
No morbid passions, no disquietude, 
No vengeance and no hatred needs must feel 
The joy of that pure principle of love 
So deeply, that unsatisfied with aught 
Less pure and exquisite, he cannot choose, 
But seek for objects of a kindred love 
In fellow natures, and a kindred joy. 
Accordingly he by degrees perceives 
His feelings of aversion softened down ; 
A holy tenderness pervades his frame. 
His sanity of reason not impaired, 
Say rather, all his thoughts now flowing clear, 
From a clear fountain flowing, he looks around 
And seeks for good ; and finds the good he seeks ; 
Until abhorrence and contempt are things 
He only knows by name ; and, if he hear 
From other mouths the language which they speak, 
He is compassionate ; and has no tfeought, 
No feeling which can overcome his love." 

True it is, and let us be very sure of it, that he who feels 
but little for the human family of God, will not be the best lover 
of any one thereof; nor will he who has no brotherhood glowing 
in him ready to burst into flame at human heroism or suffering, 
love you the better for your own obscure sacred devotion ; nor 
he who looks with apathy on the struggles of mankind, be the 
most quick to a comrade's pain. He whose love you best may 
trust, that it will endure through all storms, sorrow, good or ill 
report, is he whose love of you roots in the same things which 
transport him with mingled awe and joy when he looks on the 
countenance of the One in the Many, beholding the struggles of 
his brother men. 

Now abide Faith (or, in the poet's phrase, Admiration) 
Hope and Love. By Hope the soul is exalted and bred in 
grand thoughts of the meaning of the things provided for us. 



ADMIRATION, HOPE, LOVE. 105 

This is life. By Admiration the mind lifts all things to an 
eternal lineage, and the 

"heait is at the secret source 
Of every precious thing." 

This is religion. By Love we exalt all mankind to a station of 
honor. This is fellowship. By Love, also, one sets on high an- 
other, to glorify and cherish him, and mingle with him to the 
production of a common nature which is not either one of them 
but both in one. This is a blessed communion. 



LOYE TO GOD. 

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God."— Matt, xxii, 37. 

Here, and in many other places in the teachings of prophets 
and holy men, we are commanded to love God. Therefore, the 
pulpit rings with the same command. Often it is taught rudely, 
coarsely, and enforced selfishly. Then the soul revolts, if it have 
come to spiritual modesty, shrinking exceedingly perhaps from 
the love that is commanded. 

Indeed, I have observed, if I mistake not, that there is a 
natural shrinking of the spirit from love to God when the love is 
enjoined as a duty and necessity. Even though it be delicately, 
graciously and beautifully urged, I have observed a shrinking 
from the duty of love to God. Indeed I know not what kind of 
love can be claimed as a duty without being shaken and con- 
founded. For the precious things of love are not to be com- 
manded but attracted. No physician can heal a flagging heart 
by saying, " Go to, now! beat and live;" nor can one arouse to 
life the spiritual heart by saying, "Goto, now! love; it is com- 
manded!" And when especially we speak of love to God, we 
shrink from such a command because not only it is contrary to 
the nature of love, which is not to be ordered by decree, but also 
it is beyond our native power. We feel no such love in us; per- 
haps we have a fear or consciousness of incapacity thereto. 
Not only we love him not, we think, but we feel not able to 
that end. No love arises. We know not how to call it forth, or 
that we can; and to face it as a stern duty, as the most sacred of 
obligations, as the first and great commandment, is a hard thing. 
Often to sensitive natures no doubt it is a terrible thing, some- 
times bowing them down to despair. • 

I can remember well my thoughts about loving God, when 
I was a child. From the pulpit, from my Bible, from my good 



108 LOVE TO GOD. 

teacher with whom I lived away from home, I heard constantly 
of this duty. I was told that I mubt love God, with all my heart 
and mind and soul and strength. I must love him better than 
all that was dear to me. I must give my love deeply, fervently, 
with perfect devotion and self- surrender, with the heart's whole 
power and store. And my heart simply answered, "I cannot, I 
cannot. This love will not come. I cannot create it. When all 
is done that I can, I yet love my father and mother and brothers, 
and I love not God. Then I was told that this inability was the 
proof of a bad heart, because the natural heart is at enmity with 
God." Sinfulness, they told me, was choking the soul's power 
of loving the Maker, making it cold and hard unto him. But 
this frightened without helping me. For it gave me no power 
to make what can not be made, nor to call from the deep by will 
what cometh above will. Still I knew that I loved my mother 
and brothers the best. Nay, I could not see that at all I loved 
God. 

But now, I have come to understand that my sorrowful and 
struggling sense of having no love to God sprung not from de- 
pravity of heart or sinfulness, but simply was a misunderstand- 
ing of the term. I knew not what love to God meant. 
A like misunderstanding I have found to be so common that the 
time, I think, will be used not ill this morning if I explain very 
briefly and simply what it seems to me love to God is in truth. 

We will ask, then, first, What is love? Have you tried ever 
to analyse love? Have you asked yourselves ever what you do 
when you love anyone? The act of loving is a very complex 
affection, by no means simple and ultimate. Love always com- 
prises two elements, and generally three. 

First, love contains desire, — desire for the love of the be- 
loved. Love always wishes to place its seal on the beloved and 
say, "This is. mine. Love comprises also desires for the happiness, 
prosperity, safety and joy of the one beloved. All these desires 
form part of the complex act of loving. 

Secondly, love commonly comprises respect or esteem. 
But this element not always is present. Sometimes a wife, more 
often a mother, will love unfailingly a husband or son or daughter 
whose riotous or desperate life consumes respect. But esteem 
commonly is present in the complex affection of love, and always 



LOVE TO GOD. 109 

in blessed and happy love. Now, this element of esteem is a 
moral element. Esteem is reverence for high moral qualities 
inhering in a person. It is called forth by the contemplation of 
noble traits beheld in a living soul. It is declaration of merit 
or excellence. 

Thirdly, there is yet the element which is primary in the 
complex act of love. Like desire and the moral sense, this 
element is ultimate, simple, individual, a primary power or 
faculty of us. I mean the indefinable somewhat which all feel 
but cannot describe, for which the best name is Tenderness. This 
I call an ultimate fact or power. It cannot be analysed. It 
streams in the soul of itself, by virtue of our nature. It eludes 
definition. It has no parts by which to be pictured or described. 
But every soul knows by experience this tenderness which flows 
out to others, inexpressibly, deeply, joyously, asking only to 
flow. Flow it will, without permission. Its justification is in 
itself. Now, this tenderness streams spontaneously and sweetly 
in response to what I may call relations of nearness between 
ourselves and others; the nearness of family ties of long ac- 
quaintance and companionship, of similar nature, endowments, 
tastes, aspirations, temperament. The kinds of nearness which 
call forth this tenderness are as delicate, indefinable, inexpress- 
ible as tenderness itself. Each person has a charmed circle, 
larger or smaller, but not very large with any, into which one 
must find the way and creep near in order to receive the precious 
abundance of the soul's high, pure, serene and unlimited tend- 
erness. 

These three elements, then, combine to form the complex 
affection and emotions of love as every day we feel them: De- 
sire, which is the appropriating or egoistic element, arising from 
the wants of human nature and the privations of circumstances ; 
Esteem, which is the moral and rational element, arising from 
the discrimination and judgment of the moral reason in 
respect to right, worth and goodness: Tenderness, which is the 
forth-going or altruistic element, arising by some relations of 
nearness to us in another being, — as the child's nearness to the 
mother, or the nearness of kindred spirits. 

Now, it remains to ask, How stand these elements of love 
as related to God? 



110 LOVE TO GOD. 

It is plain, first, that the element of desire must be put 
aside. God is Maker, Upholder of all things. Therefore noth- 
ing can be desired for him that he has not, nor is there aught 
that we could long for him to be that he is not. And we can- 
not desire to make him ours, since he is with us, our Father, at 
all times; nor can we desire impiously to call him all our own 
who is the Infinite Father of all creatures. 

But again it is plain, secondly, that the element of tender- 
ness must be put away. The relations of nearness to which 
tenderness responds imply always a certain equality, and often 
also nearness in place. There must be opportunity of presence 
and acquaintance, for the arising of tenderness toward any one. 
But God is the One, the Eternal, the Infinite, the Perfect. He 
fills all things. He is the life of the living and of the dead, the 
perfect Order, the all-infolding Spirit. He is, in truth, infinitely 
near, yet infinitely far also. And though we live and move in 
his being and are surrounded evermore by his presence, yet he 
is no nearer to any one than to another, and lives unseen, un- 
touched, unheard save as each and all may see, touch and hear 
him in the prophetic recesses of the Spirit. Unto God, therefore, 
-that tenderness cannot arise which depends on circumstances of 
special personal nearness. There is something even of irrever- 
ence and impiety, which all surely must feel, in professing unto 
God those same tender emotions which we pour forth on parent, 
brother, sister and friend. 

The moral element, the element of esteem, therefore, is left 
alone. This toward God becomes veneration, aspiration, wor- 
ship. This element not only goes out to the Infinite One, but 
only in the devotion unto him has its utmost attainment, and 
expression. It is reverence, awe, glorifying, trust. This to know 
and feel is to be moral and spiritual beings, children of God. 
It is pure religion. It is awe without fear, simple and pure. 

Now, these reasonings lead us to see that love to God 
is not like human love, of friend to friend, comrade to comrade, 
or parental or filial; yet that rightly it is to be called love, be- 
cause it is the utmost exaltation anil power of that rational part, 
the moral element, the fine esteem and ethical reverence which 
lifts human love into its greatest glory and joy, Now, with 
this exaltation of moral judgment into a veneration, adoration, 



LOVE TO GOD. Ill 

aspiration, worship, which is love to God, go some other exer- 
cises of spirit which accompany human love also in all forms of 
it. These are Joy, Trust, and a constant living action of the 
Love. 

Joy in love is very great. The greatest joy of it is in loving. 
"Depend upon it," says Sir Arthur Helps, "the most fatal 
idleness is that of the heart. And the man who feels weary of 
life may be sure that he does not love his fellow- creatures as he 
ought." 

There is also a joy in being loved which waits on the other 
and greater joy like the bow-in-the-clouds on the sun and the 
rain. How precious and fair this makes human life! Nay, with 
what a pleasure we behold its exercise in our dumb fellow 
creatures ! I know not that life can be conceived or is possible 
but by love. Certainly it were but a frozen zone where intel- 
ligence has hard struggle to live. But with love is light, con- 
ception, understanding, power to do anything, and a great joy. 
Now, this Joy goes likewise with love to God. The exaltation of 
the moral power of the soul into worship is a great joy. The 
perception of a holy perfectness, an Eternal Kighteousness, 
Mercy, Justice, Providence, Peace, Beauty, and the uplifting of 
the soul to this sight of the soul with unspeakable worship is a 
love which is great joy. 

Trust is another exercise of spirit which goes with human 
love and likewise with love to God. To have a pure and perfect 
trust in a friend — what a stay that is ! What peace ! What a 
source of the sense of power and strength ! Such a trust attends 
love to God as what I have reasoned it to be, — attends with its 
utmost force and reason. When we have conceived and beheld 
what is of God, — Justice, Truth, Loving-kindness, Holiness, 
Peace, and all these Eternal. Infinite, — and unto this Perfect 
we look in adoration, worship, glory, here is a sea that will 
carry our Trust. We are full of the power of Trust. Then we 
cry, "He always wins who sides with God," "One with God is a 
majority," "Learn what God is like" and "Back with thine angel 
to the field and bravely do thy part"— "The Lord is my light and 
my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of 
my life ; of whom shall I be afraid ?" 

Another exercise of our souls in our human loves is what I 



112 LOVE* TO GOD. 

have called the constant living action of the love. A true love is 
ever with us, like a waking guardian or a watchful administrator. 
Shall we do this act? What would our precious and revered 
friend say of it? Is this a good feeling, an honorable emotion? 
What if our beloved were looking on it? These reflections at- 
tend always a very high kind and joyful faculty of love in human 
life. This same constancy of presence and action attends love 
to God. For this love is worship, adoration and joy, with holy 
awe. In measure as thus we feel unto Eternal Holiness, all 
temporal evil will be rebuked. We can not know and have in 
us this love unto God without feeling constantly that, "however 
things may seem, no good thing is failure and no evil thing is 
success." Love to God is that worship and praise unto the 
goodness of God which arise in us always by their pure force, if 
ill things solicit us, to answer them, saying, "No, ye cannot live 
before His face, and therefore ye should be foreign to me." 

One great joy and support there is in love to God which ex- 
ists not in our human loves, namely, the immanent and unfailing 
presence of God. We may miss a human friend sorely. We 
may long for his presence unutterably when we can not have it. 
Perhaps sad conditions part us, or seas roll between, or death, 
so like to the sea, "which divides and yet unites mankind." Or 
if we may see our beloved sometimes, yet it may be rarely and 
for a period very short and flying swiftly to leave us again alone. 

But never we can be lonely for God. Always he is Presence. 
If we sit on a hill and view the wide quiet of a landscape, he is 
Presence therein. "Would not all fade away altogether, were we 
left for one moment really alone in it ?" If we look into the 
heavens at night where the stars call forth their hosts without 
number, God is with us therein, who inhabiteth Eternity and' 
Infinity. If we go to our fellow men, there, in you, in me, in all, 
in the solemness of crowds, is the same Mystery, Life, 
Presence, Power, Peace, One in the Many, Infinity in the finite, 
Eternity in Time. "If we ascend into heaven, he is there ; if we 
make our bed in the grave, behold he is there; if we take the 
wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the sea, 
even there doth his hand lead us and his right hand doth hold 
us." Unto love to God never is lacking the Presence of the 
Lord. "In the secret of his tabernacle " we are, "in the secret 



LOVE TO GOD. 113 

place of the Most High, under the shadow of the Almighty." 
Now, by these reflections it is plain that we cannot love God 
as we love each other. This never ought to be commanded or 
expected. Looking back at my own experience, I would counsel 
that it is unwise and wrong to urge children to love God. Un- 
able to analyse and think, they will be only pained and confused, 
perhaps frightened and distressed, the conscience troubled and 
perplexed. Even perhaps the heart will be hardened and the 
sweet naturalness of religious unfolding distorted or destroyed. 
Let the mind be directed to divine beauty and filled with rever- 
ence for goodness. Then adoration, aspiration, worship, sense 
of the Infinite divine presence, peace and joy will follow naturally 
and fervently. Love of virtue, love of truth, love of beauty, love 
of love, is love of God, for these are his being. When they are 
beheld glorifying all the works of God, shining everywhere, and 
the divine, impending, encompassing Spirit is known, then fol- 
lows adoration of Him, the source and being of us, the Father 
divine. And when, with single eye and pure devotion, all the 
power of the mind is devoted to the truth, and all the reverence 
of the soul rises unto the beautiful, and all the might of the 
moral judgment is in council for the right, and all the mercy 
and love of the heart pour forth to our. fellow men, — then we 
love God, as we are commanded, with all the heart and all the 
soul and all the mind and all the strength. Then we know that 
this truly is "the first and great commandment." 



FEAB OF GOD. 

"Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness ; fear before him all the 
earth." — Psalm xcvi, 9. 

This good text will show us the right meaning of the fear of 
God. For the two parts of the text, I think, must be used to 
explain each other. They make one Hebrew stanza, if so I may 
call the parallelism of two lines which is the Hebrew poetical 
form. Therefore they may be considered as two forms of the 
same thought, this being the nature commonly of the Hebrew 
parallelism. Thus to "fear before" the Lord is the same as to 
"worship in the beauty of holiness."* 

Fear of God is set forth exceedingly as a chief teaching of 
religion. To fear him is to be religious and to be saved. 
Pulpits ring with the need of religious fear. Prayer-meetings are 
deprecatory — "0 Lord have mercy upon us miserable offenders." 
But in all this teaching and in such-like prayer, the sad preach- 
ers and still sadder people (yet I know not whether it be worse 
to mislead, as the preachers do, and by custom of much speaking 
to feel little, or to be misled, as the people are, and by rarer 
recurrence to words to feel much) forsake this good text wherein 
the fear of God is made the same as to worship in the beauty of 
holiness. 

Let us look together at some meanings of the word "fear." 

First, to fear may mean to be afraid. An old Stoic has 
said, "No sane man is afraid of God." But religion has been 
a weary long time in coming to sanity. Nay, sanity, which 
means good health, soundness, seems the last and slow virtue 
acquired by men in any of life's business. Sanity or soundness 

*Some prefer to translate "In holy beauty," which might have no different 
sense in truth. Others prefer "In holy array," or "In holy attire," or "In holy 
adornment." But I shall do no ill in hanging the thought of my sermon on the 
common translation. 



116 FEAR OF GOD. 

means also roundness; I mean, good balance and the due 
strength of all parts in their measure and manner. For no man 
is sane or sound who has one part very strong and another very 
weak, a creature of bumps and hollows, a protuberance here, a 
depression there; but only one who is rounded out well and 
evenly and has a fair shape by the evenness and right size of all 
parts. As the body is not sound which has strong arms but 
shaking legs, or keen eyes but dull ears, or good lungs but a 
disordered heart, so no man is sane or sound in soul who is huge 
in thought and dwarfish in feeling, or the other way, or strong 
in imagination and weak in reason, or the other way; but only 
he is sound and sane, and sees things as they are, who is round- 
ed well, and evenly brought forth in his different powers and in 
the many actions of the mind, — balanced and stable, if such a 
figure I may use, on the sharp and delicate wedge of life. And 
this roundness, as I have said, is the same as health, and health 
is the same as joy. To work healthily, to think healthily, to 
love healthily, is in very truth rapture; and is power to see 
things as they are, which is to know them in their eternity, 
which is to see them in God. 

But this same health or roundness or soundness or sanity, 
whichever name we may please, seems to be the rarest thing in 
the world, and mankind has been a long time toiling unto it as 
a race; and religion has been a weary long time attaining to 
sanity. Therefore, though truly "no sane man is afraid of God," 
because, as the Stoic says again, "his power is to do good," and 
no power at all has he to do evil or any harm, because this 
would be to do contrary to what he is, to unmake himself and 
cease to be, "who inhabits eternity" — though this be true, yet, 
so little sanity is there, men on all hands are afraid of God; are 
fearing God after this manner, of being afraid. When the Jews 
in the desert made a calf of molten gold, Moses said that he fell 
down before the Lord for them forty days and forty nights, "For 
I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure wherewith the 
Lord was wroth against you to destroy you." This sad and bad 
thing, to be sure, is found in the history of barbarians, whose 
image or thought of God was of a great king called Yahweh, 
who was raging with jealous fury and wounded pride in some 
palace of the sky, because the people took away their homage 



FEAR OF GOD. 117 

from him and made over their attentions to a golden calf. What 
matter? Is it not in the Bible in many places that God was 
angry and smote the people? He still is "wroth with anger and 
hot displeasure," say the pulpits. He is "angry with the wicked 
every day." He "is a consuming fire." He "is a jealous God." 
"Who can stand before him" when he is angry? Oh! how did 
these texts, and many such, plague my tender childhood! And 
other children they are plaguing now. All around us the pulpits 
are full of these texts, not bursting and leaking at every chink 
with them, as once they were, but still full, crying out that we 
must fear God, meaning that we must be afraid of being found 
in the multitude taken in wrath who shall be trampled down in- 
to his wrath and "hot displeasure." And to take good care or 
wise means to escape the wrath is called religion. No doubt they 
who say these things and preach fear in this sense, are very con- 
scientious in it. I mean, they feel constrained to do so; for surely 
it is a thing which has few attractions. But they are not sane; 
they are not in right mind; they are misshapen in some 
manner, not sound and round in mental and moral parts; and 
being not sane, they are afraid of God. This insanity is so old 
and has prevailed so long (for philosophers say, and we can 
make little doubt of it, that religion begins in fear and comes 
sooner to terror than to gratitude) that it has great prescription 
and a strong hold. For it is fringed with teachings like a 
rime of ages, and has every creed to speak for it, and sprang 
from the first pathetic gropings of the uninstructed religious 
nature.* 

*I subjoin, for ray liking of it, the following eloquence of Sir Thomas 
Browne in "rleligio Medici" : •'! thank God, ana with joy I mention it, I was 
never afraid of hell, nor ever grew pale at the description of that place. I have 
so fixed my contemplations on heaven, that I have always forgot the idea of 
hell ; and am afraid rather to lose the joys of the one, than endure the misery 
of the othtr ; to be deprived of them is a perfect hell, and needs, methinks, no 
additions to complete our afflictions. That terrible term hath never detained 
me from sin, nor do I owe any good action to the name thereof. I fear God, yet 
am not afraid of him ; his mercies make me afraid of my sins, before his judg- 
ments al raid thereof ; these are the forced and secondary methods of his wis- 
dom, which he useth but as the last remedy, and upon provocation,— a course 
rather to deter the wicked than to excite the virtuous to his worship. I can 
hardly think there was ever any scared into heaven; they go the fairest way to 
heaven that would serve God without a hell; other mercenaries, that crouch 
unto him in fear of hell, though they term themselves the servants, are indeed 
but the slaves of the Almighty." Religio Medici, 1. LII. Yet though this elo- 
quence and manliness and piety is good, must I not call it but a half piety or a 
piety half toldv For if "his mercies make ashamed of sins," then what need of 



118 FEAE OF GOD. 

But if, then, it be so bad a thing and so far from piety to 
be afraid of God and to think of him as " wroth against ns with 
anger and hot displeasure," shall we cease to use the word "fear" 
as toward God ? Will the words "fear of God" be then mean- 
ingless, or else ill-meaning? No, for the word "fear" has an- 
other precise and accepted sense ; and it is the lot of many words 
to have sundry meanings, and is no objection to them; for as 
states of mind shade by fine degrees into each other, so must one 
word cover many delicate differences in degree or kind; and if 
even covering diverse kinds of things or ideas, this need not work 
confusion. Such a word is "fear." Not only it means the being 
afraid, but also it expresses an exalted exercise of soul in rever- 
ence and awe. To fear God is to look forth on creation with 
awe; still more, to look into ourselves, the moral order, with 
awe. This meaning of fear is spoken in the first word of the 
text, the parallel to the saying, "Fear before him." The par- 
allel is, "Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness." "Wor- 
ship" is one meaning of "fear." It is awe, adoration, the 
"walking humbly with God," yet with a great exaltation of 
spirit, like the poet, who searching and gazing into the sky cried, 
The "undevout astronomer is mad." To be afraid is the 
meaning of "fear" when we are thinking of ourselves; it is the 
feeling we have toward some power on -account of an actual or 
possible disposition, affection or action of the power toward our- 
selves. When we forget ourselves and think not of any interests 
or desires of us, and are not busy with hopes and anxieties about 
what shall fall to us, with wishes to avoid one thing or to obtain 

a heaven to entice more than of a hell to deter? And why is not the true heaven 
to be sought in the mind which thus by love is lifted above sin? And if to 
"crouch in fear of hell" be bad, is the crouching in desire of reward any better? 
Therefore the good Sir Thomas , though he has come to the sanity of not being 
afraid, has not expressed herein the full roundness of not desiring, but of 
adoring and aspiring and lifting up the spirit for simple love and worship. 
With a like halt were the words of the Chaplain Koloff to the first Frederick 
William of Prussia at his death. Roloff dealt very roundly with the monarch 
(see Hagenbach s ''German Rationalism," Chap, ii.), and said to him, "If your 
Majesty were to be saved by a miracle, of which, however, we have no reason 
for expectation, you would not enjoy heaven in the condition of mind in which 
you now are. Your army, your treasures, your lands, must remain here— no 
courtiers can follow you there, no servants on whom you can wreak your anger. 
]n heaven a man must have a heavenly mind." "Ihose were words worthy of 
a Nathan," Yes; but go a step further, Herr Hagenbach, and say the truth, 
that a heavenly mind is heaven, which hath naught to do with time or place, 
and "hath no need of the sun, nor of the moon, to lighten it," and "there is no 
night in it!" 



FEAR OF GOD. 119 

another thing, then the "fear" which was the being afraid, be- 
cause we were full of ourselves, becomes awe and reverence and 
adoration, because we are thinking purely of God. 

A poet has put in a peaceful stanza an expression of the 
"fear" which is awe, far away from terror. " What should I do," 
says the poet, "if I were told that I must die to-morrow?" And 
answers : 

"I might not sleep for awe ; but peaceful, tender, 
My soul would lie 
All the night long ; and when the morning splendor 

blushed o'er the sky, 
I think that I could smile— could calmly say, 
'It is his day.' " 

"I might not sleep for awe"; which is to say, for the fear of 
God, but not for terror, not for the being affrighted of him. Fear 
of God is 



it is to 
it is to 



"The instinct that can tell 
That God is on the field, when he 
Is most invisible" : 



"lose not heart, 
But learn what God is like ;" 

"See aloft the red right Arm 
Straight redress the eternal scales ;' ; 



it is to look on our lot with a reverence, as being our part in the 
work and Providence of God, wherein we are 



"Content to fill a little space 
If he be glorified ;" 



it is to think of God in our joys, and to extinguish menial 
troubles in the thought of him, and if we have pure great sor- 
rows, to trusl and love in them; it is to conceive that "in him 
we live and move and have our being," and "of him and through 
him and in him are all things;" it is to feel forth unto him 



"Who is within a quickening Flame, 
A Presence round about;" 



it is to think of "the Eternal Years;" it is to dwell in the light of 
the mystery of living, of coming to life, of death, and the Eternal 
Years; it is to enter into infinite space, where are "all the stars 
in company," and "the generations of the earth," and the awful 
ought that "comes like wind and burns like flame," and to fall 



120 FEAR OF GOD. 

down, and yet again look up, in adoration, and cry, Still, "there 
is more than this;" and yet again it is to behold all this glory 
of earth and sky and waters under them, of suns and stars and 
radiance, as no more than the perishable, the changeable and 
transitory, before One "from whose face the earth and the 
heaven fled away and there was found no place for them;" — awe, 
holy wonder, piety, devoutness, the sense of the heavens and 
earth as a sanctuary, adoration, humility, exaltation, faith, glory, 
all sublimity, and solemn thoughts, this is fear of God. 

To fear God has yet another meaning, which also is in the 
text, in the parallel to the words ''Fear before him;" for says 
the first line of the parallelism, "Worship the Lord in the beauty 
of holiness." To keep unto the beauty of holiness thus is made 
the parallel of fearing God and the same thing as to fear him. 
And to cleave with love and trust unto holiness as a beauty and 
light, is the same as to turn from evil, condemning and fearing 
it. Therefore, to fear wrong is to fear God. But to fear to do 
wrong because it is dangerous, because it may heap punishments 
or sufferings on us, because Almightiness may afflict us with his 
judgments, this is not to fear God in this noble and true sense 
of the text, but to be afraid of him; not to fear him, but to be 
affrighted at the things he may do to us if we be offenders. But 
to fear wrong because it is an abasement of the image of Light 
and Holiness in us, because it is to abuse what is sacred, because 
it is to work shame and reproach under the holy heavens, be- 
cause it is to put to desecration the law which is the nature and 
being of God in all things and in our own hearts, because evil 
by its very essence is an enemy of our souls, because it is ruin, 
hatefulness, darkness, the foe of all nature, of love' of under- 
standing and of joy, the fear of evil-doing because it spoils us of 
power to see things as they are, to have true knowledge, to live 
in council with nature, to hear the voices of all sounds and read 
the scriptures of all lights, which is nothing else but to see God 
with our eyes and hear him with our ears and know him in his 
Presence, — thus and for these reasons to fear wrong, is to fear 
God. To fear to do wrong, not for the penalty of it, but for the 
evil itself, the spirit-hurt, because what is ill is disfigurement, 
tarnish, taint, wane, debasement, waste and rust, unnatural, a 
self-shame, a condemnation even if there were no court or law 



FEAB OF GOD. 121 

in Heaven and no punishment in the Universe — to fear wrong 
thus is the fear of God. 

There is a manner and kind of fearing wrong which is like 
being afraid of God; only that, instead of being affrighted at the 
punishments which the Almighty Judge will inflict, we then are 
terrified away from evil by the consequences which it drags after 
it, such as disease, pain, decrepitude, or the penalties which men 
annex to the wrong, such as loss of reputation and of friends, dis- 
honor, prisons. Such a manner of terror may be possible, 
plainly, to one who "has said in his heart, 'There is no God.' " 
But it is no better than being afraid of God, neither more virtu- 
ous, nor more nor less religious. For whether we be frightened 
off by imagining what an angry Deity will do to us or by what 
the laws of nature or of men will inflict, it is but a calculation of 
consequences to us, an argument about advantages, which neither 
is real love of right nor real fear of wrong. Dread of penalties 
is a wretched motive of conduct, neither religious nor virtuous, 
nor creative of noble life ; for both religion and virtue require 
self -forgetfulD ess. 

Now, this is the account I would give of fearing God, 
namely, that "no sane man can be afraid of God," but that fear 
of him has a true and high sense touching the heart, meaning 
awe and reverence, and also another true and high sense touch- 
ing the moral nature, meaning a pure shrinking from evil be- 
cause it is against the being and truth of God, because it is that 
darkness which comprehends not the Light when the Light 
enters into the world, because wrong is a fearful going away from 
God. 

In conclusion, I would that I might express that peace 
and sense of safety which belong to our spirits, contrary to that 
being afraid of the Father which has flourished sadly and long 
and tormented many tender souls ill-taught. A sense of safety 
as vast as heaven and earth, and like the being taken up into 
"everlasting arms," may fill and feed the soul. It will rise to 
unutterable joy, gratefulness, communion, in rare moments 
when the spirit is lifted up, when we come up out of the 
waters of daily life baptised into truthfulness, pure love, knowl- 
edge, peace ; and the heavens open to us, and we hear a voice, 
which owns us children of God. 



122 FEAR OF GOD. 

I feel very safe, all safe. "He shall preserve thee from all 
evil; he shall preserve thy soul." Here is another parallelism, 
or Hebrew stanza of verse, wherein the two lines mean the same 
thing. He shall preserve thy soul, and therein preserve thee from 
all evil. What if, in ways we understand not yet, nor can 
fathom, our bodies be hurt or overwhelmed, or our possessions 
crumbled or shaken to pieces or burned? Still "it shall not 
come nigh thee" for thou art a soul, which is "preserved." There- 
fore I can take what comes to me; either in joy or in a waiting 
peace T can take it; and naught really evil can happen to me 
save my own wrong- doing. If then I do wrong, I would not 
abate any punishment thereof, nor escape for an instant from 
the blessed disciplinary order of all things. I am all safe, sur- 
rounded, encamped about. The world was made for the worm, 
the sparrow and me. What time can I remember in the past 
when either I was deserted or ill-treated? What time, therefore, 
can I be afraid of in the future? For what comes to me in the 
holy order I would not turn from, nor revile it; and if sorrow 
come, I would not turn from it lest I turn from God ; and some 
time, nay often by the waysid?, I shall have joy unto the very 
full of my soul. 

This sense of safety is a perfect willingness of spirit unto all 
that is in Providence and belongs in the Order of God. With 
this willingness goes a confidence, a sense of being at home, which 
is supreme and ineffable. Yet I may try to express it by figure 
or comparison. Into what manner of safety do I enter? I feel 
as safe and immovable as the solid earth, — as the Psalmist says, 
"Like Mount Zion which cannot be moved," and "the 
mountains around about Jerusalem;" and again, "He 
will not suffer thy foot to be moved." And how safe is the 
earth, that it shall accomplish its being and end? The earth is 
as safe as the eternal stars that stretch through the heavens, of 
which it is one star. And how safe are the stars ? As safe as 
all the universe of worlds on worlds whose light never reaches 
us from the eternity of the distance of their stations, which 
"hath no end, yea ! also, and no beginning." And how safe is 
all the universe ? As safe as God, whose Light, whose Life, 
whose Visibleness, it is. Safe am I, therefore, with the safety 
of God; for I am of the earth, which is of the firmament of stars, 



1 



FEAR OF GOD. 123 

which is of the Universe of things, which is of God. With joy 
and wonder I lay me down to sleep; with wonder and joy I 
awake. With wonder and joy also I will die; and with joy — 
what then? Whoknoweth? But to the unknown event, be- 
cause it is of the One, the Eternal, of whom the known is a 
shade on my right hand, I say, "Come thou! Welcome! Come 
in — with joy!" 

"Be still and know that he is God." "He stilleth the noise 
of the seas and the roaring of their waves, and the tumult of the 
people!" 



IMMOETAL LIFE. 



This life hath a future life, say we ? Nay, rather, all life 
is immortal life; for what we mean by life is that we have left 
death, have come forth from not-being ; why then return to not-be- 
ing? We, or I,means personal continuance from experience to expe- 
rience, whereby I, who had experience yesterday, having striven, 
loved, lost, won, sought, labored, joyed, grieved yesterday, 
link these things to. the like or to other things to-day. Now this 
person, this WE, this I, this continuance from experience to ex- 
perience, this link between yesterday and to-day, this reflection 
over from one experience to the next like it, this is what has 
come forth from not-being ; and why should it return to not-be- 
ing? Why should this person in us, this quality to span mo- 
ments, times, events, and join one to another, this which we 
name life, or thought, or consciousness, or what you will, — the 
names are legion — why should this, having appeared, then dis- 
appear? Why, having come forth, being brought to pass in the 
divine suscitation, and having gotten a name, or named itself, 
We, I, Me, Life, Soul, Spirit, Thought, Knowledge, Memory, 
Person, why should this be brought then not to pass and not to 
be? Why should it? Who can give a reason? Who can give 
a guess that it is so, better than my guess that it is not so ? 
Whose feeling that he will perish is worth any more than 
my defiance of perishing? Whose lack of will to live is 
worth any more than my scorn of the thought of dying? 
Who can give a reason for dying more than I for not 
dying? I can give no reason for continuing, say you? 



126 IMMORTAL LIFE. 

But here I am! Try you to give a reason for my ceas- 
ing, or for my believing that I shall cease. Vain! While 
my ears are filled with the harmonies of life, will you per- 
suade me there is but silence? Away! Dance, if you must, to 
no tune, no sound, a dumb show of an instrument, all keys but 
no pipes ; leave me to my music and my march ! I will not 
argue with you. I will not cut up logic with you. I will not 
probe the body with you, trepan, dissect, anatomize. I have no 
time. I am too happy. Joy is like a race — I must run it. No 
one who runs will ask what a race is. I remember now a fable 
of a fish who hearing some men on the shore speak of water, 
straightway swam everywhither in search of the water and 
spent his miserable days in besetting his neighbors with entreaties 
to know where he might find what he was swimming in. 

" All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, 

And to die is different, from what any one supposed and luckier." 

* * * 
"What is a man anyhow? What am I? What are you"? 

* * * 
"I know I am deathless ; 

I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's compass ; 
I know I shall not pass like a child's carlacae cut with a burnt stick, at night." 

* * * 
" I swear I think now that everything without exception has an eternal soul I 
The trees have, rooted in the ground ! The weeds of the sea have ! the animals 

have! 
"I swear Ithink there is nothing but immortality ! 
That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous float is for it and the 

cohering is for it 1 
And all preparation is for it— and identity is for it— and _life and materials are 
altogether for it !" 

This being the ecstacy of life, now I will give in this dis- 
course four points and two inferences, thoughts of life, not after 
the manner of the fish, but after what his manner might be if, 
having found that it was the water which was the vehicle of his 
search for water, he fell to praising and singing and joyfully 
celebrating the sea and the being a fish, the water and his own 
fins. 

First then I will state this thought, namely, that this liv- 
ing place, the earth I mean, and this manner of life, and our 
going forth and being in it daily, all this which we collect and 
signify when we utter the words " this life," — all this, I say, is 
but incidents of life. It is not life, but events of life. If, not 
saying " this life," but " this event of life," we spoke thus of 



IMMORTAL LIFE. 127 

this dwelling-place, and of these conditions in which we are, I 
know not but this habit of speech, long continued, would have 
lifted us into wide light and joy out of many shallow cisterns of 
darkness and doubts. Life is vast; it has habitations and con- 
ditions and events without number. This earth is one habita- 
tion. We are with life and in life and life in us. That we are 
on this earth is one event of the life of us, which hath all events 
in it. That we have this wondrous body here, is another event 
of it. That by this body we busy ourselves with the earth and 
its materials, is another event of life. That we have childhood, 
youth, mid-life, age, and pass on from one of these stages to 
another, is a compound event of life, made of many events. 
That this body hath a further transaction beyond growing old, 
namely, that it dies and dissolves, is another event of life. 
" Man dies alive — think of that! " exclaims a poet. All these 
are but incidents, events ; they happen in life and are of life ; 
but they are not life, nor bound rt, nor give account of it nor 
describe it. 

Secondly, let this thought have place, namely, that if this 
earth as our lodging, and if our coming to it and our stay in it 
and all passing along the way, if this be but an event or a be- 
falling in life, how momentous and great it is! For herein the 
stress of the mind is to be laid on life. The great matter is, not that 
this course of things, this earthly journey, is an event, but that 
it is an event in life. In the first' thought I laid emphasis on 
event — that this life on the earth, with its birth and death, is not 
the whole of life, but an event in life ; but now I would turn 
about and lay the strain of all my force, for my own joy, (and 
for joy of others, if so much I may be blessed), on life — that all 
this earthly march and experience is an event in life. Then 
how grand and important this present life looks, because it is an 
event, which means a coming forth, in life, in the Everlasting, 
the Infinite, the Holy, which is Life! And being an event in 
life, what has it to do with death? What says it about death? 
Being an event in life, shall it bring up in death and become an 
event in death? Who says this? Who has reason for it? Who 
can show a hint of it anywhere? Nay, ye men of science, I have 
not " dissected the nerves of a black beetle," nor counted the len- 
ses of an insect's eye, nor turned a hydra inside out, nor burned 



128 IMMORTAL LIFE. 

up water, nor computed a comet, nor discovered a planet by the 
shaking of another, nor made cures by drugs, but I know all 
your science as well as you know it. 

''Hurrah for positive science ! long live exact demonstration ! 

Fetch stonecrop mixt with cedar and branches of lilac ! 

This is the lexicographer, this the chemist, this made a grammar of the old 

cartouches. 
These mariners put the ship through dangerous seas, 
This the geologist, this works with the scalpel, and this is a mathematician. 

"Gentlemen, to you the first honors always ! 

Your facts are useful, and yet they are not my dwelling ; 

I but enter by them to an area of my dwelling." 

All these things are but events in life, which is my dwell- 
ing, and I am in it and its nature is in me. Shall life have no 
more event when this event passes? Shall it have no more event 
for me who have known this event? Nay, my knowing of this 
event and the me which is knowing of it, this is the event of all 
events in life. Shall life drop this event? Who can say that 
life drops any event of it? Change is not a dropping of an event; 
it is but the fastening it to another. Wherefore, because this life 
of mine is an event in life, I belong to life. I feel deathless. 
And I feel how vast and glorious this present time and this pres- 
ent journey is, being an event in life. 

For the third thought, it is this, that if this present life be 
but an event or incident in life, and to be regarded grandly be- 
cause it is an event in life, and yet in a second and less import- 
ant way because it is but an event in life, then surely how little 
ought we to be immersed in the events of the event, the mere 
incidents of the incident. Whether we be rich or poor, or high 
or low, fortunate, struggling, hungry sometimes or always full, 
observed or passed by, honored or unhonored, what of this? 
What are these things? I deny not that we must live and work 
among them. I say not that they are nothings. Eather would I 
say that even any incident of an incident in lif f has its place 
or its import. Happiness, good cheer, good health, good wealth, 
righteous honors, these by no means are naught. We shall do 
well to desire them temperately and to take the means for them 
by the way; and besides, they train us to a very wholesome ac- 
tivity; and not alone for ourselves but for others, since our due 
and comely honors may give great pleasure and a lively record 
of joy to them who love us. With Paul I would say, " Covet 






1 



IMMORTAL LIFE. 129 

earnestly the best gifts." Yet with him I would add, " And yet 
I show unto you a still more excellent way " ; which is to desire 
these things, these honors and riches and outward preferments, 
and to find a good taste in them and to like them well, yet to 
set them in a second place or in a small place; to reckon them 
something and to be sought, yet to reckon them little and to be 
sought not very much, but only so much as may exercise well 
the powers of us that engage with such things — to exercise us 
well, yet to leave full force and wide time for the better riches 
and spiritual deservings and fine understanding; and especially 
not to be disquieted, if, having sought these things well and man- 
fully, we lack them, but to be able to lack them as well and man- 
fully as we cast about for them. For it is certain that every one 
who will may have the first and best things ; therefore how sure 
it is that every one may be able to lack in a manful and gentle 
manner the second and third things, or the things even of less 
rate than second or third, very like toys which having thought 
of as a child we have put away when we have become spiritual 
man. 

To learn of what moment things really are, it is a secret to 
look back on them when they are long enough past. If one 
thing be a little way off, behind or before, and another very close 
upon us, the thing that is close will seem, very like, to be 
greater than truly it is, because it will engage all our eyes and 
perhaps cover all the other things with its looming. But when 
they become all a great distance away, the little distance be- 
tween them, which made so huge a difference when they were 
near, has disappeared, and we see the things in due proportion 
and in their relative importance, as they are. 'Who has not ex- 
perienced how little, when they are far past, seem the things 
which were great interests, agitations, cares, fears, worries, per- 
plexities, heats, bitternesses, when we were walking among them. 
When we have traveled on and left them, we come to a hill-top 
afar, from which behind appear all these things in little feature, 
bits of a wide, cool landscape, covered with evening and dew and 
stars, while we bivouack for a night on the crest. This will help 
us to judge better of them and give them no more than their 
place while they have the importance of being with us and pass- 
ing by. 



130 IMMORTAL LIFE. 

This effect of time, the looming of things more than their 
value because they are near, has been mentioned well by Cardi- 
nal Newman, with the explanation well stated, to-wit, that it is 
just because the present things are mixed up with our souls that 
they seem so great; whence easily it is seen that we should use 
the advantage of the distant view to learn not to let our souls be 
confused too much with things just because they are present. In 
the book of Genesis (xlvii) it is told that when Joseph was ad- 
vanced highly in Egypt, Jacob and all his other sons came from 
Canaan, which was famine-smitten, to seek a dwelling in Goshen, 
and on being brought to the king, Jacob was asked by the king 
how old he was, and the patriarch answered, " Few and evil 
have been the years of my life." Yet he was then, as he says, a 
hundred and thirty years old. Commenting thereon, Cardinal 
Newman says, '• Had Jacob lived to Methuselah's age, he would 
have called it short. This is what we all feel, though at first 
sight it seems a contradiction, that even though the days as they 
go be slow, and be laden with many events, or with sorrows, or 
dreariness, lengthening them out and making them tedious, yet 
the year passes quick though the hours tarry, and time bygone is 
as a dream, though we thought it would never go while it was 
going. And the reason seems to be this: that when we contem- 
plate human life in itself, in however small a portion of it, we 
see implied in it the presence of a soul, the energy of a spiritual 
existence, of an accountable being; consciousness tells us this 
concerning it every moment. But when we look back on it in 
memory, we view it but externally, as a mere lapse of time, as a 
mere earthly history. And the longest " duration of this external 
world is as dust, and weighs nothing against one moment's life 
of the world within." 

If, now, such be the effect of viewing things distantly, and 
many things appear too great to us when close by, from the very 
fact of the mingling of the human soul with them, how much it 
is to be wished, and how important it is, that we should learn to 
mingle our souls with them only duly, and to know them in their 
true values, as they are revealed when seen afar off in their place 
in a wide view of many things. For though these things of 
which I speak, the outward things of the world, to be rich or 
poor, high-placed or humbly-placed, at ease or much- striving, 






IMMORTAL LIFE. 131 

though these be the smaller matters of life, yet it is a very great 
matter how we deal with them, and what concern our souls 
make with them. If being the smaller things, we make very 
much of them and advance them to be great things, then the 
smaller the thing is which we put in a great place the worse it 
is for us, and the more the soul is blinded and unable to see the 
immortal life. For if in our lives we put first things first, and 
the things which are of value we bring into the highest place in 
our thoughts, this is the same as to know life, what it is, and 
that it must go on, and what death is, that it is but an event in 
life, and a change by which life proceeds, and touches not that 
life whose nature is shown by the nature of the things which are 
first and greatest in it. To know what things are first in any 
thing is to know that thing well. He is a musician who knows 
well and feels most the things which are first and best in music, 
such as true tune and harmony, refined melody, thought, ex- 
pressiveness, and the like, but not tricks of fingers and nimble 
caracoles over keys. So he that knows truly what things are 
first in life and attends to these things, which are temperance, 
truthfulness, lovingness, faithfulness, reverence, thought, — he 
knows life and hath experience of it, and will be the one soon- 
est to get true report of the nature of life and of his own nature, 
and that the two agree and leave no death in view for him. 

Also, if we look at things truly in their different values as 
we pass them on our way, and see rightly which are the greater 
and which the smaller, and treat them so, then the past will look 
the same to us as now the present does. The distant harmony 
and proportions will be like those we perceive now. We shall 
not have the shame by and by, and the ignorance now, of finding 
things dwindle in the distance and appear trifling in the past 
which we made all-important while they were with us, being 
disturbed by them and whirled about by them. But past and 
present will be a unity, and the same moral judgments rise in 
both, and the same things seem great in both, and therefore no 
insignificance anywhere. Life will be one stream, not inter- 
rupted. To perceive the past and present as one in moral im- 
port, and one stream of life, is the same as to look forward con- 
fidently, with no sense of interruption. If the past of us survive 
and seem great, not trifling, the future will appear to us in the 



1 32 IMMORTAL LIFE. 

same manner, and we shall live in life and be filled with immor- 
tality. This Wordsworth meant by his lines — 

" I would wish ray days to be 
"Bound each to each by natural piety : ' ; 

for then life is all one, and the future is bound to us as much as 
the past is. And the like says Coleridge, taking the lines of 
Wordsworth therewith into his page, that it is contempt of the 
past, arising if we have misplaced things in the present, which 
cuts away joy and faith in the future from men. 
" Tliey exist in fragments" says he: " Annihilated as to the 
past, they are dead to the future, or seek for the proofs of it 
everywhere, only not (where alone it can be found) in themselves." 
But whoso puts first in his days and in his desire the things that 
truly are first, not vexed with small heats nor burned with en- 
vies, nor flying after low things as if they were high things, 
he will see the past shine like the present, and the things which 
seem great now, will seem great when he looks back on his past, 
and all will be of one voice and beauty; and unbroken life will 
cause the future to shine forward to us in like manner. 

So far I have had three points: — 1. That this earthly liv- 
ing place and our existence here is but an event in life: 
2. That if this be so, we must consider how great and momen- 
tous this life is, because it is an incident in life, and life goes on 
unto everlastingness: 3. That the outward cares and interests 
of this life, as whether we be rich or poor, and so on, are but in- 
cidents of the incident, and in themselves are naught or little, 
but that it is a great matter in what way we take them and deal 
with them. Now, I come to another point, the fourth, namely, 
that this living-place, the earth, and our present life on it, have 
two special interests and glories. The first of these is a mental 
and moral glory of mystery. Some persons cannot conceive of 
living after the body dies. There is no way of imagining it, say 
they. It is too wonderful, inconceivable, mysterious. It can not 
be grasped. We have no manner of thinking of it. It is too as- 
tonishing. Now when I hear any say so, I can but wonder whether 
they find anything wonderful in this life; and if they do, then 
why find aught to stumble at in the idea of another life, or the 
continuity of life, because it is astonishing and the way of it 



IMMORTAL LIFE. 133 

unimaginable ? For myself, I seem like one shut in an ark, 
with a window toward the East and another toward the West. 
And having looked out of the Eastward window, till I am aston- 
ished with the things I see, the marvels of the heavens and the 
earth, and such an expanse, so that I am struck dumb with mar- 
veling, when at last I have become a little used to it, I turn me 
to look through the West window, saying, grown quiet, " Well 
I will look forth on the opposite side, and I expect as many great 
marvels as I have seen in the East, and even if there be more, 
and they be doubled or quintillioned, I shall not be surprised; 
after what I have seen, nothing can astonish me very much. So 
in this life I am filled »so with wonder at my being, at all that be- 
longs to me and goes on in me, at earth and sky, at other per- 
sons, at living creatures, from plants to men, insects, fishes, 
birds, monkeys, domestic creatures, wild creatures, at the unliv- 
ing things (as they seem to us) from a sand-grain or a mist- 
vesicle to a planet and sun, at all organs, eyes, ears, hands, at 
the mysteries which make one a man "and another a woman 
" and the feeling they have for each other", at little children and 
their manner of growing and the wonder of their changes till they 
become old, at crystals and songs and music and poetry, at 
sciences and reasoning and mathematics, with these and my life 
I am so wonder-filled that one of the greatest wonders to me is that 
any one can be so little expectant as I find some persons are. 
For myself, after all these wonders I reckon on the most im- 
mense and unimaginable things, to which we yet are as un- 
opened as a babe is to these present marvels ; but they belong to 
us, and await us, as these the babe. Such vast things as here 
there are, could not come from any source which had an end or 
limit of them. I expect mightily. I reckon without end. 
"What is a man, anyhow? What am I? What are you?" 
What is the soul ? " We do not know what it is," say Cardinal 
Newman, in an eloquent exposition of the " Mysteriousness of 
ourPresent Being;" "it cannot be reached by any of the senses; 
we cannot see it or touch it. It has nothing in common with 
extension or form. To ask what shape the soul is would be as 
absurd as to ask what is the shape of a thought, or a wish, or a 
regret,or a hope. * * * * A n( j w hat is it that unites soul 
and body? how do they touch? how do they keep together? 



134 IMMORTAL LIFE. 

how is it that we do not wander to the stars, or to the depths of 
the sea, or to and fro as chance may carry us, while our body 
remains as it was on the earth? So far from its being wonder- 
ful that the body one day dies, how is it that it is made to live 
and move at all ? how is it that it keeps from dying a single 
hour?" That I live at all is the one mystery and marvel on 
which I fall and stagger back, or lie on it trembling. After that, 
all is easy to think of, to dream of, to await; nothing is aston- 
ishing or difficult. 

The second special interest and glory touching our life here, 
is the moral splendor and moment of it. The moral is the un- 
approachable sublimity. No matter what grandeur we be look- 
ing at, whether it be the utmost that mountains or the sea or the 
stars can show to us, let but a moral deed come to light there, a 
bit of supreme truthfulness or faithfulness or self-sacrifice, and 
instantly it holds all the majesty. All ranges, peaks, craters, 
waters, fires and suns pale in its presence. If one give a cup of 
water while his lips are 'cracking, or offer a kiss for a blow man- 
fully, or leave not an " ass o'erladen" or " dog in the strada hard 
beset", let it be in presence of what conjunction of mighty things 
you will, suns and planets and moons, " height or depth, or any 
other creature", the deed has a face like God, from which " the 
earth and heavens flee away, and there is found no place for them." 
This moral capacity puts to shame all of earth's opportunities. 
There is not room here for the expansion to its full of a deed of 
self-sacrifice, or a soul of love and peace. What end is there to 
such a thing ? What can limit a moral singleness ? What shore 
hath that voyage? What room for it by land or sea? " Men 
there are", says the Cardinal before quoted, in a discourse of 
" The Greatness and Littleness of Human Life" — " Men there 
are, who in a single moment of their lives have shown a super- 
human height and majesty of mind which it would take ages for 
them to employ on its proper objects, and, as it were, to exhaust; 
and who by such passing flashes, like rays of the sun and the 
darting of lightning, give token of their immortality. * * * 
Yet they are suddenly taken away, and we have hardly recog- 
nized them when we lose them. * * * There is something 
in moral truth and goodness, in firmness, in heavenly-minded- 
ness, in meekness, in courage, in lovingkindness, to which this 



IMMORTAL LIFE. 135 

world's circumstances are quite unequal, for which the longest 
life is insufficient, which makes the highest opportunities of this 
world disappointing, which must burst the prison of this world 
to have its appropriate range". By these thoughts and such ex- 
perience the moral nature witnesses to immortality. There is a 
vastness and might in self-sacrifice, in "devotion, which shows 
what death is, and looks through it and beyond. Self-sacrifice has 
room and possibility because dying is not destruction, and 
destruction is impossible. If one " give his body to be burned" 
for love, is the end of the body the end of the giving of it, and of 
him who gave it?,, These", cried Bartol, over some dead soldiers, 
" these are my witnesses of immortality. Think you the bullet 
came commissioned to let into nothingness the soul it could not 
daunt?" There is contradiction in the thought. Courage and 
calm self-devotion put death in its true place, and show what it 
is, that it is but an event in the process of life. And there is 
something in simple virtue and unselfishness so very grand and 
so infinite in what it may become and do, that this earth and its 
years have no equality or correspondence with it. It is the voice 
of God, saying, " Think not this small place is all; but for this 
my voice telling thee thou mightest think it all, for indeed it is 
great and holds things very great to thine eyes. But be informed. 
There is more, and this is but a little part." 

So far now, to make here another review, I have said that 
this living-place and the days of our life in it make but one inci- 
dent in life, not an ending, but one event : that because it is a 
befalling in Life, it is very momentous and holy ; that the differ- 
ences of our fortunes here are but incidents of the incident, and 
small matters in themselves, but yet it is a great matter how we 
take them; that our living here is such a mystery and glory that 
after it naught need astonish us and all things are possible; and 
that the moral moment of a man's life here is so great that we 
can conceive no scope for it but in everlastingness. 

From these thoughts I draw two simple inferences: 
The first is that simple Natural Keligion has naught to fear 
in death. It needs no reconcilement with death. I hear much 
in these days of the reconcilement of religion with knowledge. 
We must reconcile religion with this philosophy, say some wise 
men; or, How shall religion agree with that science? say others j 



136 IMMOETAL LIFE. 

or, We must make space for religion in this new discovery, — and 
how shall it be joined therewith? say others. Now they who say 
so are learned men and know all the things of which they speak, 
the philosophies and sciences and discoveries ; but it is a ques- 
tion whether they know truly what religion is also. Mayhap 
they have not attended so well to that. To me it seems very like 
that religion is that which reconciles all things to each other and 
brings them to one ; and that to speak of reconciling religion to a 
new thought is as if one should say that all things together 
must come to be reconciled to that new-comer, whereas it is that 
one thing which must make its way to unity with all things. 
Mayhap one who knows what religion is, if it have made a hab- 
itation in him, will not find the need of reconciling it with aught, 
for it never was out with anything, but is what shows all the 
many in One. But of this I will venture no more now (for it is 
a path with many windings and through some thickets which 
must be parted) than to say that simple religion has no need to 
be reconciled with death. Never it was estranged from death. 
It takes death as a pure habitude and a simple event in the process 
of living. Keligion has no fear of death, nor any manner of 
fear, because religion is love, and with love is no room for fear. 
How can one fear anything who loves all things as they are and 
loves to have them so? And religion dwells in such a mystery 
of life, and so is glorified in the life, that presently it knows no 
end of the deeps of moral life, and insists, like the poet that 
" man dies alive," and having done the feat of dying, he is not 
less alive, but the more, by measure of another event in life 
achieved. 

The second thing which I conclude from all these thoughts 
is that " one soul is as precious as another". This is not my 
own good thought. A woman said to me one day, with a very 
earnest look, " One soul is as precious as another"; and in- 
stantly I knew that it was so. 

" In all people I see myself, none more, and not one a barley- 
corn less, 
And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them". 

In the journey of this life and in the last event of it all are 
mates. Some falter in one place, some in another, some walk 
grandly in one portion, some in another; but none go without 



IMMOBTAL LIFE. 137 

staggering in some place and none fail to walk grandly in some 
portion. Through it all, and in front of the last event of it, 
"one soul is as precious as another". None is offered any more 
life than another. What is missed at one place and time is not 
lost. There are other places, and more time. If we be chained 
or set in a walled place here, and we see many things which we 
know it is good to do or to have, courage!" This period is not 
all. There is time enough to do everything. There is everlast- 
ing time in which to take what belongs to us. No one can feel 
he is more beloved than another, nor less beloved; for enough 
time is the great gift which carries all others with it; and this 
is given to all, and to none more than to another. Wherefore all 
are the same in the love of the Giver of Time, the Father Eter- 
nal. Not one thing which another may not have would I wish, 
for it is impious to wish to be more precious and more blest than 
another; and nothing which another has is denied to me, nor 
aught of mine is denied to another, for we have time to come to 
them all. what blessedness in such knowledge ! What fine 
joy in such thoughts! What beauty of the face of life in them! 
I perceive the meaning of the Psalmist, " Behold the beauty of 
the Lord and inquire in his temple" — " Strength and beauty are 
in his sanctuary". 



NATUEAL EELIGION. 

"One God and Father of all, who is over all and through and in all." 
— Eph. iv, 6. 

These words of the apostle will give me at the outset a three- 
fold thought from which to take account of Natural Keligion. 
But before I end the sermon I shall come to another three-fold 
report of this Religion by an elder prophet. 

Natural Religion is that which dwells in all houses of faith, in 
all companies or temples or adorations of whatever name, or 
whether there be no name at all. And he who dwells with 
Natural Religion must be ready to be at home anywhere and find 
nature's face in every habitation. For myself, I hope I am so; 
and I hope it is for my soul's good health that I should be, how- 
soever with mortal weakness and littleness of mind I may fall 
short of it. If I were brought into being in mid space, on no 
earth, with no history, naught in my soul of men's device or 
statement, but only the thought of God, and then were dropped 
on this earth in this maze of histories, creeds, religions, forms, 
worships, I know not how I could feel more at home with all, 
less averse to any, than now I do, if they be sincere. I have no 
name which labels or prescribes me. There are few assemblies 
or thoughts so little human but I can pick out some greatness 
to feed on and some habitude which is fellow to mine ; and none 
so grand in humanity (which is in divinity too) but I can aspire 
and strive up unto it with understanding and joy. 

Therefore habit me in any name you will, I know none but 
fits some bend in me. Will you call me Jew ? I will accept it. 
To me Moses is colossal. I glory in the prophets. I am under 
amazement with all that history. I am astonished with the 
sufferings, fortitude, devotion, sincerity, sublimity, religion of 
the race. I sing the psalms. Nor is there any anthem or cry 
pf religion in the ages that moves me so like the sound of an 



140 NATURAL RELIGION. 

archangel's trumpet as the Hebrew watch-cry, " Hear, Israel, 
the Eternal is our God, the Eternal is One." Will you call me 
Christian ? I shall not deny it. I was born in that household. 
It were strange if in the house of my heritage I could find no 
pictures and nothing fine. I am astonished and glorified in 
Jesus. I have joy in the wonderful parables of him, and in the 
mountain sermon, and in his love of the fields and flowers and 
gentle creatures, in his defiance and courage, in his appeal to 
his own soul, in his dealing with children, with the women who 
revered him, with the outcast, the despised, the sinful, with the 
great and with the lowly, and before Pilate and on the cross. 
Paul is an amazing fiery greatness to me. All the gospel and 
Paul's letters are very great. The rush of a pure charity and of 
enthusiasm of humanity into the Roman world with the first 
Christians, the rise of hospitals and brotherhoods of mercy and 
angelic sisters, many great saints and martyrs and brave pro- 
testers, all these magnify the Lord. I am of them and estab- 
lished by them; I am fed with the glory of them; I will not 
leave them. I like the name of them, be it Christian. Or will 
you call me Unitarian ? It is welcome. The name is honor- 
able. It has a brave history, and therefore is honorable in 
itself. It is unpopular, and even much hated by those who 
know not what it means, and therefore raises the more honor in 
bearing it. I have joy in its unity of worship; I find reason 
and fervor in its looking unto one the eteknal one, neither two 
nor three, but one alone. I am rejoiced by its love of human 
nature and declaration of the dignity and worth of every soul, 
and the preciousness of every one soul, equal to any other. I 
am blessed with its wide fellowship, founded in the spirit and 
not in the letter, in the heart and not in creed, whereby it wel- 
comes all, and excludes not any, and examines no one's creed 
who assumes the name, but leaves to each soul to say what 
name best suits it. For thus I see and conclude of Unitarianism, 
namely, that if a line be drawn around all things which call 
themselves by that name, at least in this country of ours, that 
line will include more differences of opinion, and more extreme 
differences, living together in love and peace, seeking truth 
thoughtfully, speaking thought truthfully and crowning every 
one with a like freedom of the spirit, than any other line that 



NATURAL RELIGION. 141 

can be circumscribed. And this is very noble and cheering, 
truth revealing. I am at home in it. I am happy in it. It 
fills me like mountain air. It tastes good like hill water. I 
like the name of it, be it Unitarian. Or will you call me by no 
name, and say I own none, because he who is anything is noth- 
ing? I shall not quarrel with you; neither feel I at all cold if 
I be stripped in that manner. For the best name is but a little 
thing when a man has fenced it, and all of them together are 
not worth a contention. You will call me Naturalist, or Ration - 
alist, or Theist? Do so. 1 like them. They fit me. I would 
I might be worthy to bear them, for I have found persons called 
by those names full of sweetness and purity; and certainly they 
describe well what thoughts I have and what credo I love, for 
I have naught to preach and no hold sufficient for my spirit but 
simple Natural Religion. 

To speak now of Natural Religion, I find in it : 

1. The Substance. 

2. The Forms. 

3. The Records. 

4. Human Relations in Religion. 
Of these I will speak in order. 

First, of the substance of Natural Religion. Now, here I 
might stop and go no further than this one point. It were not 
only enough for a sermon but for a whole large discourse, or even 
whole book, to convey the substance of Natural Religion; 
for though the grand thoughts of it are few, yes, and 
simple, yet they are so very grand — such as God, Providence, 
Love, Trust, Duty, Faith, Peace, Life — that to treat of them is 
to unlock and open the whole soul. But it is not my purpose 
in this sermon to explore Natural Religion in such a way, but 
only to give account of some great features of it, an outline, 
of which some words about the substance of it must be part. 

Now, the substance of Natural Religion is much and rich, 
thoughts very great and very rich, as I have said. But these 
thoughts will be greater and richer in some places and some 
minds than in others; for they will be conceived in their riches 
and greatness better in higher and more developed natures than 
in minds more ignorant and less unfolded. But because these 
higher natures and more unfolded minds have these great 



142 NATURAL RELIGION. 

thoughts more richly, and enter into them more, shall we say- 
that the poorer or less unfolded forms of them in less taught or 
less grown minds, are not religion ? By no means. Keligion 
is like pure air. On the finest hill in the wholesomest plain it is 
no more than air. So religion is not transcended, nor comes to 
more than its own, in the highest heauty or conception of a 
saint and seer, and is not extinguished nor despoiled of itself in 
lowly and poor forms and made rude thoughts of it. Therefore 
I may take now, in speaking of the substance of it, the least and 
most unexpanded form, that seems to have the countenance or 
name of Religion. This is, the Adoration of the Good, the 
Beautiful and the True. Wherever this veneration appears, 
religion has been born. It has then but to grow and unfold in 
order to come to all its members, to all its divisions and beauties 
and powers. But you will say, "Is not Morality also just this 
same thing, namely, reverence for the good, the beautiful and 
the true? Yes. "Then how differ Religion and Morality?" 
Now, this question I have spoken of in two sermons of this vol- 
ume,* wherefore I ought not to repeat it here, further than to 
say again, in sum, that religion is adoration of Holiness, Beauty 
and Truth as now radiant in Being, but morality is adoration of 
them as to be grown unto and attained in us. 

To the Holy, Beautiful and True Being, we give the "Great 
Name." He is God. He "is above all," as Paul's text says. The 
name is not made by us, as if men said long ago, "Go to now! 
let us have a name for the Holiness and Beauty of Being." 
No; but the name springs in men very early, very far back in 
the prime shadows of time, with the notions of conception, of 
angels, of dreams in them, with their first up-look above them- 
selves to Power more great and awful and adorable. The Great 
Name thus arises, and utters man's sense of the Being who is 
"above all," rules, carries, guides, orders and makes all. Then, 
slowly, but surely and never failing, by the growth and progress 
of the spiritual nature, beginning with the first beliefs of what is 
good, what is beautiful and true, according to their imperfect 
vision, the Supreme, the Power "above all," is clothed unto 
men with Mercy, with Providence, with Salvation and Loving- 
kindness, and men are clothed with the estate of children unto 

*"What is Religion?" p. 1 ; "Religion and Ethics," p. 11. 



NATURAL RELIGION. 143 

him. Then awakes the name "Our Father," and the first sub- 
stance of Natural Religion hath come to its height and fervor 
and joy. 

So far what I have said has unfolded only from the first of the 
three parts of Paul's grand words in my text. He says of God 
that "He is above all, and through all, and in all." I have 
been speaking only those thoughts which do utter Him as 
"above all." But now I have to say that Natural Religion thinks 
of the Father also as "through all" — not a maker, a creator, a 
planner, a framer, as one may imagine a man sending by his 
power some message or object to his friend, which will gladden 
the heart of his friend though he be away and far off. Not so, 
not a maker and framer; but the One whose being is the mak- 
ing of all things, who hath not made the things but now is the 
things by his own presence and life, — as if the man whom I 
spoke of should not send by his power any object to his friend, 
but himself, and be to his friend by his presence and in himself 
the gift, the object, the life, the power, and the help, all in one, 
thus not conveying a joy, but himself being it, and, if so I may 
say, by his own living it into his friend. Thus the Father is 
not far off nor a maker to send anything from a distance away, 
but the One whose infinite life is itself all things that we have, 
who, being above all so that all things come of him, so like- 
wise through all, so that naught comes of him to go from him 
and be without him, but he is unto us those things that in him 
live and move and have being. Wherefore all men and all the 
dumb creatures who are our fellow beings, and whatsoever be- 
ings may exist anywhere, whom we know not and yet sometime 
may know, all these, yes, and all the waving trees and little 
wood flowers and humble plants, through which (so some bot- 
anists now tell us) runs very likely some sense of well being 
which we, with our glorious faculties, have lost count of and can 
imagine no more — all these, I say, are his children, and gathered 
into one undivided thought in him; and he is "through all." 
what a thought of the great apostle is this, that he is "through 
all!" It were easy to say "above all ;" and this have the ages 
said forever and ever, from the first speeh of man; but to say 
that he is "through all," this is a great flight of piety which had 
to wait till the bars and lattices of fear were eaten away by the 



144 NATUBAL EELIGION. 

elements, and freed the wings of the soul to roam and be at 
home anywhere; nor afraid of anything, however seeming to 
dissolve beneath it, because it had wings. what a thought, I 
say, of the great apostle! And yet rather would I call it a 
thought of man, of all men, of the soul itself; yea, and not a 
thought, as one may wrestle and can understand in mind, like 
as the body may struggle and get its aim by strength — no not a 
thought thus, but rather the life, the nature, and being of the 
soul, its very breath and motion, like unto the breathing of the 
body which is strength, but not struggle. Therefore, what 
the life of man is ! I will say what the soul ! what the height 
and depth and the light and the love of natural piety, — that it is 
this utterance of Him, the Father who is "through all;" not far 
away, nay, and not near either, for to be near is to be too far, 
but "through all," and therefore all in Him. 

So much being said, in exceeding brevity, of the substance of 
Natural Keligion, we come to religious forms. What has sim- 
ple Natural Eeligion to say of all the many forms of religion ? 

This, first — that there is only one religion. Natural Eeligion 
signifies the one universal religion, and is ready to say that all 
religion is one, and there is but this one religion in the world, 
nor can be any other. For religion is worship and uplifting of 
the soul truly to the One True, Beautiful, Holy Being whose 
name is God and Father. And as he is One, and religion is a 
going forth unto Him, how can there be more than one religion ? 
If a saint pray, and a savage bow himself before a carved image 
or a block of wood or a stone, both worship God, for an act of 
worship can go no elsewhither than unto God, the One. 

But though there be only one religion in the world, and can 
be no more, there are many forms of religion. The one religion 
appears in many forms. These differing forms bring many 
things to be joined with religion which are external and belong 
not to the real nature and true essence of religion; which fact 
the Natural Religion itself perceives already, and knows itself, 
and is one and the same thing clothed with one array of form 
in one place and with another in another place and a third in 
some other place. Now these many differing forms, wherein 
outward things are joined with the one pure religion, are called 
Historical Religions; though it were better to call them Histori- 






NATURAL RELIGION. 145 

cal Forms of Religion. All these Historical Religions have 
truth in them ; for all of them share in the one universal Nat- 
ural Religion, and in that part they are true and everlasting. 
But all these Historical Religions contain error also, for all are 
dipped in the ideas of particular nations, races, times; and in 
that part they are imperfect or erroneous, and transitory. 

The chief Historical Religions, or Forms of Religion are six 
in number: Judaism, Parseeism, China's Religion, Buddhism, 
Islamism, Christianity. In all of these the substance of religion 
is the same and is simple Natural Religion. It is more clear in 
one than in another, more refined, spiritual, fervent, more 
spoken forth in power and in purity; but it is not alien from 
any. It is the one substance in them all which makes each of 
them to be religion. Now therewith the variations which cause 
them to be Historical Religions, are many, and differ widely in 
them: 

Buddhism is the Historical Religion which was raised in In- 
dia by the life and teachings of the prophet Gotama. It is 
marked by sayings of wisdom and piety ascribed to that prophet, 
and also by traditions of mighty wonders and miracles mingled 
with his life. 

Parseeism is the Historical Religion which was begun in Per- 
sia under the inspiration of the teachings of Zarathustra, called 
by the Greeks Zoroaster, no doubt a great prophet; and^the re- 
ligion has sayings and prayers and great wisdom and fervor as- 
cribed to him, and also a very great array of wonders, miracles 
and signs done by him and around him. 

Judaism is the Historical Religion of the Jews, founded on 
the Hebrew prophets, chiefly Moses ; and it is full of sublime 
and beautiful wisdom, fervor, ethical truth, in the sayings of the 
prophets ; and full also of its own wonders and miracles wrought 
around Moses and other great leaders and prophets of the 
people. 

Islamism is the Historical Religion which arose in Arabia by 
the deeds and teachings of Mahomet. It has great and fervent 
proclamations and prayers in it, ascribed to Mahomet, and it, 
like the others, has its miracles gathered about the prophet's 
life, though few. and less miraculous than the wonderful tradi- 
tions of the other Historical Religions already mentioned. 



146 NATURAL RELIGION. 

The Keligion of China, or Confucianism, was builded in 
China by the teaching and life of Kung-fu-tsee, called by us 
Confucius ; it is full of calm and high and gentle wisdom as- 
cribed to that teacher, but it is strangely free from the stories of 
miracles and signs which throng in all the others of the six chief 
Historical Religions. 

Christianity is the Historical Religion which began in Pales- 
tine in the life and teachings of the prophet Jesus of Nazareth. 
It is full of very beautiful teachings ascribed to him, very pure 
and high and spiritual; and it has a great tradition of miracles 
and signs wrought by him or around him to establish his mis- 
sion and authority. 

Christianity is simply a Historical Religion. It is one of the 
great and chief six, no more, no less. It is not the one true and 
perfect religion, as its believers say it is. All the believers of 
each one of the Historical Religions say the same thing of their 
religion. They say it is the one religion which is true and ever- 
lasting. But no one of these religions is so. Every one of them 
partakes of Natural Religion, and in that part it is at one with 
all the others, and is truth and everlastingness. But every one 
of them also has its own special doctrines, claims, ceremonies, 
rites, and all but one have arrays of miracles which each one 
claims to be the divine proof of the supremacy and perfectness 
of it; and in this part they are merely historical, not spiritual, 
merely so many events in some time and some place and not the 
natural substance of the soul's worship always and everywhere; 
and therefore in this part they are temporal and transitory. 
And this is true of all of them, and of Christianity as surely as 
of any of them. After reading much in them all and with ad- 
miration of every one of them, I think indeed that Christianity 
is larger, more chaste, more serene, more fervent, with more 
power in it of unfolding and growing toward perfectness, and 
with local, temporary, transitory elements less intimately 
and structurally mingled with the Natural Religion in it, than 
any other Historical Religion. But if it be so, there is naught 
marvelous or strange therein. If some one of the Historical 
Religions had not attained to a broader vision than the others, 
this were the strange thing. But I say this of Christianity very 
modestly, with no bold self-confidence, with remembrance that 



1 



NATURAL RELIGION. 147 

the believer born into any other of the Historical Keligions con- 
ceives likewise of his own religion, with a sense specially of the 
fecund and unfolding power which Judaism is displaying, and 
finally with a pure historical indifference whether it be Christian- 
ity or any other of them which is the higher and nobler, for I 
am simply glad in the human nobleness and go to it with love 
and stretch my hands to it, whatever be the name of it. 

Here again in these many forms of religion, we come to the 
apostle's grand words that the "Father is above all and through 
all." "Above all" he is, for he is the One, the Infinite, the Eter- 
nal, the Life and Love and Presence whom all the forms reach 
and struggle unto, and sing and praise and pi ay. And he is 
"through all" the forms, because men as little can pray and 
think, or dream or praise or glorify apart from him and of 
themselves, as they can walk or be born or live or die of them- 
selves ; but he is through all, through all the forms, and through 
all the religions that are named and are but forms added unto 
the one only religion; through all these he is the same Provi- 
dence, the same Eeason, the same Life and Love, bringing them 
all to pass, all to grow till they change as seeds into shoots, and 
shoots to stems, and stems to trees, till they lift mighty heads 
into the skies. Through all he is, and lives in that manner 
which we call truth; for whatever is is so in him, and to see 
anything as it is is to l^ehold his nature and to see him ; and in 
all the many forms and names is truth, and no one of them is 
all false and all a failure, but every one of them is true in part 
and in part yet striving for truth, like a tree which hath formed 
many rings of sound wood and hath told in them the truth of 
its age, and yet makes a new ring every golden season, and pre- 
dicts not the sum of its years, as it cannot do because it cannot 
know the Father in his infinity; but it hath told the truth of its 
past, because it knows the Father not falsely but truly, though 
only in part. Thus he is through all in the truth of all, and 
truth is one, and all the many forms of the one religion are gath- 
ered in him into one thought, as all the many worlds are in 
one law and in one space; and he is through them all in that 
truth of them all which is the one pure, upstriving, humble 
piety and worship of the human soul; which is the same as the 
child-instinct in it, never ceasing to cling to the Father, and to 



148 NATURAL RELIGION. 

cry aloud with prayer for him when in need, and with songs 
unto him in joy. 

So far I have spoken of the substance of Natural Keligion, and 
of the historical forms of it. The substance is one and univer- 
sal, being love and worship unto the One Supreme, True, Beau- 
tiful and Holy Being whose name is God, in whom all 
men, and all the dumb animals who are our fellow beings, and 
whatsoever creatures may exist anywhere, "live and move and 
have their being." The historical forms of this one religion, 
which is to say, the one substance joined with divers local and 
temporary things, are many, and are known as Historical Re- 
ligions. Now I come to the third point in the history of Natur- 
al Keligion, namely, that all these Historical Keligions make for 
themselves Kecords. In these Records are written down the lives 
of the great founder, teachers, prophets, singers of the faith, 
with their teachings and psalms and prayers, and with the mira- 
cles, "wonders and signs" and "mighty works" told of them. 
For the stories of miracles and signs always grow up and are 
received simply and fondly, when men are full of reverence and 
not yet have have learned the laws, actions and properties of 
natural objects. 

These Records which the Historical Religions thus make 
for themselves are called Scriptures. The books of them 
are holy and sacred, and to believe them reverently always 
is a part of the religion. The Bible is the Scripture of the Jews 
and the Christians. The Old Bible is the Scripture of the Jews. 
The New Testament is a collection of the writings of the first 
Christians ; and all the books of the Bible, both of the Old Tes- 
tament and of the New, are the Christian Scriptures. 

Now in what manner ought we to read this Scripture, the Bi- 
ble? In three ways, namely, with reverence, with care, and 
with reason: reverently, because it holds great, beautiful and 
devout thoughts, the teachings, psalms and prayers of holy men 
and prophets; carefully, in order to understand it aright, for 
which indeed much care, knowledge, judgment, comparison and 
study are needful; rationally, because reason is the light of the 
mind whereby to try all things and judge what is true. 

Here come we to the third thought in Paul's grand text, not 
only that God is "above all" and "through all," but "in all," 



NATURAL RELIGION. 149 

and in us all — the light of reason. Seasoning is the mind's 
eye, and the sight of the truth therewith. There are things 
which reasoning cannot compass. And there are distances which 
the eye cannot resolve, but it can save us from pits at hand. 
Likewise reason, though it reveal not all nor resolve all distances 
of truth while yet we are far off from them, nor can show us yet 
all that infinitely is reasonable, yet it can save us from pits of the 
unreasonable. And as the light of the sun, which is God's 
shining, fills the eye of the body, so doth his indwelling Pres- 
ence, his life in whom we live, his spiritual enlightenment, fill 
and open the reason, the eye of the soul. How strangely have 
men denied the reason! How sottishly have they thrown it 
away! How impiously have they scorned it! It is "at enmity 
with God," it is but a "carnal reason," it is blind and deceitful, 
mischievous, it leads away from God, it must be put away and 
simple belief or faith must be followed, or perhaps a church or a 
book, nay, the reason is so "carnal" and so unfaithful to us and 
unreligious that it is well to confound it as much as possible, and 
he has the most excellent faith who declares the most unreason- 
able things, like the Schoolman who said "I believe this doctrine 
because it is incredible, I accept it because it is impossible" — 
these, and many such things, have men said about human rea- 
son ; not perceiving that it is divine reason, the divine within us, 
God communing with us, his light enlightening us, and "in us 
all," and if we deny the reason, we have hooded our eyes from 
knowledge of God and have turned us from his appearing unto 
us. In all the sallies of the reason from the ports of sense, God 
dwells in us and goes with us. He is "in us all." Not any son 
of man anywhere hath he inspired more truly nor dwelt in him 
bodily in fulness more absolutely than he is "in us all" and 
maketh the reason light and giveth vision. Wherefore we are 
to treat our reason holily and reverently, and though it resolve 
not all things and all distances, yet, while we await more, we are 
to walk with it reverently now, and know it is the action of the 
whole soul toward God, and it is the eye which he hath made 
or given us in his own likeness, and the sight of it is by him and 
with him and his indwelling, "by whose light we see light." 
So saith simple Natural Eeligion. Let the reason be used and 
followed, in things human and divine, patiently, with piety, with 



150 NATURAL RELIGION. 

trust to wait and, when we see clearly, then to speak or to do, 
unf earing, with a lowly bravery, for God is "in us all." 

Now, finally, I come to human relations in Natural Eeligion. 
What must these be? In what way, by the spirit of simple 
Natural Religion, shall we encompass each other and live one 
with another ? This is a great thing. For it were strange if 
Natural Religion, which turns us, by first light, unto God, had 
naught to do in turning us one to another; strange if, going 
unto the Father, there were no bonds therein between the child- 
ren going together. Now it is a curious thing in the Historical 
Religions, or at least a very notable thing, and I cannot but 
think it also strange to the simplicity of reason, that men have 
paid much more reverence and devotion to the historical parts 
of religion, the local events, traditions, and the color which has 
been taken from one race and one time, — to this, I say, men 
have done much more reverence than to the one simple and pure 
substance of religion itself. It is the historical parts that they 
have clung about with intensity. Now, as it is in the historical 
forms that men differ, being at one in their simple Natural Re- 
ligion, their great homage to the historical parts, has nursed the 
differences of men and set their minds on their alienations 
rather than on their unities. Hence have arisen wars, hatreds, 
persecutions, the bitterness of sects. The Historical Religions 
have taken but small account, on the whole, of the human rela- 
tions, so small indeed, that it has been accounted a piety in one 
religion to hate men of another faith. But in simple Natural 
Religion all are as one, and this pure faith is very kind, and 
hath as much to say of the fellowship of the children in the 
Father as of the adoration of the Father. Therefore human 
relations are very sacred points in Natural Religion; but the 
principles are very simple withal, and to be stated in a few 
words, though large works were needed to open and apply them 
to all human conditions and companying. 

These simple principles are expressed thus, — that the most 
sacred things in human relations are Love and Duty. But 
Love — what is that? It is a deep and kind feeling of fraternity 
and fellowship with all creatures, as one family in the Father- 
hood of God. And Duty — what is that ? The sum of Duty is 
to confess every creature and thing to be what it is, and to be^ 



NATURAL BELIGION. 151 

have toward it according to its nature. The sense of Duty lives 
in the word Ought, which we speak and understand because we 
are children of the Eternal and Holy, who is God. 

We live, therefore, in this one bond, of three parts, — unto our 
Father in Worship, unto all creatures in Love and in Duty. 
This is the sum of the whole matter. ''What doth the Lord 
require of thee but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk 
humbly with thy God?" 

Here now I have set forth, as best I could, the simple doc- 
trine of Natural Religion. Paul has uttered it in a three-fold 
way in the grand words of my text, that it is the thought of God, 
of the Father, above all and through all and in us all. Like- 
wise, as I have followed the path of the expounding of it as best 
I could, I have found it a wide road of three separate foot- ways, 
though different from the three-foldness which the apostle has 
given it. The apostle's three-foldness clashes not at all with 
this other which I have found; and like enough, if I were to 
study farther and more curiously, I might find other three-fold 
divisions ; for it is to be noted how often thoughts and things do 
run in threes. The three foot- ways or paths of the highway of 
Natural Religion, as I have been walking in them in this dis- 
course, are these: that we live unto the Father in religious wor- 
ship, which is to say in that devout feeling which binds us back 
unto our source, and adores therein the infinitely Holy, Beauti- 
ful and True. And again, that we live unto all creatures in 
love, for that we must hold all in our hearts who also are in the 
heart of the one Father of all; and again that we live unto all 
creatures in duty, which is to say that we must strive to see them 
as they are in truth, and to act toward them according to that 
truth. Here then are the three paths of the highway, — the 
looking of the soul unto the Infinite who is our Father, and love 
and duty to all creatures who are our fellow-children. Now as 
Paul set forth one three-foldness in his grand words, so has an 
elder prophet, Micah, long before the great apostle, set forward 
this other three-pathed roadway of the natural religion of man 
in that noble saying of his which I have repeated just now, 
"What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, to love 
mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ?" 

This I have called Natural Religion ; and how better could it 



152 NATURAL RELIGION. 

be named? For if it be religion to love the Good, the Beauti- 
ful and the True, and love nothing better, nor so well, and to 
lift the heart devoutly to these wherever they shine, then truly 
this is religion. And if it be religion to be moved with the 
thought that the Holy, the Beautiful, the True is infinitely and 
supremely living, now and in the beginning and ever to be, One 
and Eternal, without shadow of turning or change, and now 
pressing on the eyes and ears and touch and thought and love 
and hope with instant and infinite glory, in whom we and all 
things have being — then surely this is religion. And if what 
springs in the heart everywhere be natural, then this is Natural 
Beligion. If what knows no bounds of time or space, but in 
every age has shone out, and in every place has builded temples, 
be natural, — then this is Natural Beligion. If what can be con- 
fined to no earth but must be the same everywhere for thinking, 
feeling and praying creatures, be natural — then this is Natural 
Beligion. And if that which is all-sufficient, which comprises 
all the glory of thinking and all the devoutness of worship, and 
all the fixedness of hope, and all the winged speed of faith, in 
one thought and rapture, be natural, — then this is Natural Be- 
ligion. And if whatever stands steadfast in life and steadfast 
in death be natural, — to walk by on earth and to walk by off the 
earth, whither we know not, only that we go by and with this, 
— then this is Natural Beligion. It is sufficient, the thought of 
the One who is God, the Father, "above all and through all 
and in all." 



EFFECT OF BELIEF ON CHAEACTEE. 

One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over 
all and through all and in all.— Eph. iv, 6-6. 

In my last sermon I spoke from the latter half of this text. 
From it I spoke of Natural Religion. Now I shall speak from 
the former part, namely, ''One Lord, one faith, one baptism." 
I shall not be disturbed by the question whether or not Paul wrote 
the letter to the Ephesians; for whether by the apostle's own 
hand or by some other, it seems to be by his spirit; I mean it is 
all genuine, fresh, wide, noble, Pauline in thought and purpose. 
Therefore I will call the writer Paul. Paul's meaning is that 
the Christians must keep "the bond of peace," being "one body," 
with "one Master," who is Christ, "one faith," which is belief 
in Christ, one form or sign of entrance into the Christian com- 
munity, which is * 'baptism. " 

Side by side stand the two sayings in the text, compounded 
in the apostle's page as in life, the universal and the partial, the 
free and the bound, the spiritual and the formal, the eternal 
truth and local creed. "One God and Father of all who is over 
all and through all and in all. " This is simple Natural Relig- 
ion. One God, one Holy Spirit of whom come all things in 
his own image ; perfect love, the Father of all ; all-powerful, who 
ruleth all things and never slumbers nor sleeps, infinitely near, 
present, with all, in all, "through all," Preserver, "Path, Mo- 
tive, Guide, Original and End;" not only "through all" the out- 
ward universe, its light, motion, beauty, being, but even "in us 
all," the light, joy and blessedness of mind, inspiration, noon- 
tide of thought, night of rest, strength, peace, hope, love. 

Beside these grand and glorious words, which rise in the 
atmosphere of the everlasting, stand those other words of mis- 
taken hope, disappointed and ever to be disappointed — "One 
Ijord, one Faith, one Baptism." What an impossible, delusive 



154 EFFECT OP BELIEF ON CHARACTER. 

dream was this, — that all the world should take one spiritual 
Master, one statement of faith, one form of confirmation! And 
yet, strangely and instructively, these words of delusion were 
spoken by the noble-minded Paul out of the very breadth of the 
broadest soul, save the Master's, whose name has come to us 
from that time in the Christian writings. Paul's thought of one 
Master, one faith, one form, was the fervent out-reaching of the 
great apostle's charity. Like the heavens of God, he wished to 
stretch out his words "as a tent to dwell in," to cover all the 
people of the earth. He wrote not nor spoke them as a formal- 
ist. Contrariwise, he meant by them to rebuke the formalism 
of the Jewish party among the Christians. Jesus, the Christ, 
the Expected One, the Messiah of God, was a Jew, they said, 
born of the Jews, sent to the Jews specially for their glory and 
deliverance, they being the peculiar people of Yahweh. Let, 
therefore, the Gentiles, if they will share in the redemption, 
enrol themselves among those to whom the Christ was sent; let 
them submit to Hebrew observances, share in Hebrew cere- 
monies, perform the rites and believe in the religion. No, said 
Paul; it is good to be a Jew, — they have been blessed pecu- 
liarly; in the old time they were chosen for honor and blessing; 
but there is one God and Father of all who is over all and 
through all and in all; he "hath made of one all the nations of 
the earth;" the Jews are his people, but, as the Master said, 
there are other sheep of his, not of the Jewish fold; and they 
all shall be gathered, till there shall be only one fold and one 
shepherd; Jesus, the Christ, came of the Jews, but he came to 
all the world; he called also the Gentiles to salvation; and by 
his call he commands you to put away the ancient enmity ; the 
Gentiles shall come freely; Christ broke down the doors and 
overthrew the walls ; you shall not erect them again ; you shall 
not hamper them in the acceptance of the great salvation by 
your forms and ceremonies, which are strange to them, or even 
wrong in their sight; these things are not essential; they are 
externals; if put forth as necessary, they become "beggarly ele- 
ments," "stumbling-blocks," abominations; the nations shall 
come as they are ; they need not first become Jews ; they shall 
partake freely of the Father's mercy; they shall be gathered from 
near and from far; they shall be told how the long-looked-for 



EFFECT OF BELIEF ON CHARACTER. 155 

Christ came not only to the Jews as was expected, but to all 
mankind; they shall be instructed in the one thing needful, — 
simple faith in him; and then, when again he shall come in the 
clouds of heaven and the great advent, which we expect daily, 
shall shake the earth, and the son of man shall reappear to claim 
and protect his faithful — then Jew and Gentile, Scythian, Ro- 
man, Greek, the rich, the poor, the ignorant and learned, the 
bondman and the free, shall be gathered into one heavenly fold 
with Christ to lead them, and there shall be "One Lord, one 
Faith, one Baptism." 

This was the broad, generous, free and charitable thought 
of Paul. Yet see how mistaken he was! The event in no wise 
was like the glorious vision of the apostle. Let those ponder 
this who dream, or act, as if they, at any rate, have achieved 
final truth, and the future can have no part but to repeat what 
they have said. 

There never has been nor is "One Lord, one Faith, one 
Baptism." There is not one Lord. The world is divided be- 
tween many religions of rival names and authorities and books. 
Even among the Christians there is not one Lord. Each sect 
has its own view of Jesus. To one he is an atoniag sacrifice; 
to another an inspired mediation, but no sacrifice; to one, a 
person in a triune deity; to another, the One Infinite himself; 
to another, a simple man inspired and glorious. 

Again, there is not one faith. A glance at the conflicts, 
not only between sects, but in the bosom of the same sect, re- 
veals the hopeless diversity. 

Still less, if possible, is there one baptism, one form. Con- 
sider, how forms vary, from Quakerism to Romanism; how they 
have appeared, changed and vanished throughout church his- 
tory; how evanescent forms are by nature, and how certain it 
is that, in lapse of time, they must be as changeable at least as 
belief is. 

As, then, whether we judge by experience or by the nature 
of the human mind, the apostle's view evidently is mistaken, 
can there not be a unity in all the diversity ? If not the unity 
of the apostle's dream, some other ? Yes ; such a unity can be 
found in this, that all sincere and good men of every faith are 
seeking for the Truth! The Truth! here is the term which in- 



156 EFFECT OF BELIEF ON CHARACTER. 

eludes and unifies all the systems and names in which fanatics 
flourish and wage war. Truth-seeking — this is the unity, 
the common term of all religions. It is simple, pure, grand, a 
large base of union and of peaceful, kind, brotherly fellowship. 
If we could attain to the broad spirit, the universal charity in 
devotion whereunto Paul wrote these memorable mistaken words 
of my text, that he might cover with the roof of the tabernacle 
the despised world of alien gentile blood to which his soul 
yearned, — then we should found a noble fellowship on naught 
but honest truth-seeking, and build, fair and grand, the "Church 
of the Spirit." 

But what I have said includes another unity embracing all 
the diversity. I have stated the unity of this fact, namely, that 
all sincere and good men of every faith are seeking for the truth. 
There is, then, this other unity or common fact also, namely, 
that all of the different sects actually do contain good and sin- 
cere men. This is the unity, surely a momentous one, on which 
I will dwell in this discourse. 

This is a vast fact. No day but it meets us face to face. 
Certainly it is no less obvious than momentous. For aught I 
can see, as good men can be found in any sect as in any other. 
No name or company has monopoly of virtue. The sincere, 
true, upright, benevolent, pure-minded troop under every name, 
and under no name. They are Episcopalians, Calvinists, Meth- 
odists, Unitarians, Universalists, Komanists, Spiritualists, Kad- 
icals, Materialists, Agnostics, Ethical-Culturists ; and by what- 
ever other name any men are known, by that name also good 
men are known. Now what lessons are we to gather from this 
cheering and happy fact ? This is my question herein. 

I ask the question because often I have heard the matter 
treated in conversation after a manner both false and hurtful, as 
I think. Often and carelessly it is averred, and repeated with 
much triumph, as if thereby ought to be silenced and shamed 
all the audacious men who insist on debating opinions and prin- 
ciples, that belief has naught to do with character. It is of no 
consequence, we hear, what a man believes if only he be good in 
act. Beliefs have no effect on character, it is averred, because 
constantly we see men equally good in act professing the most 
opposing views. 



EFFECT OF BELIEF ON CHARACTER. 157 

Now, the fact that good men adorn all sects and names 
proves not that beliefs affect not character, but only that the 
beliefs which affect character in this time are not those com- 
monly supposed to do so. All beliefs affect character in meas- 
ures as they fulfill two conditions. First, of course, the belief 
must be of a moral character, containing an ethical element. 
Belief in the importance of arithmetic or in the facts of political 
geography obviously neither are good nor are bad for character. 
But belief and understanding of the mighty glories of astron- 
omy, belief in the calculations and results of geological science, 
tremendous, awe-striking, belief in the researches of masters of 
languages, and the history opened thereby, — who can say that 
such beliefs move not the character? Does not such knowledge 
ennoble and dignify the mind, enlarge and exalt the whole 
being of a man? If a still pool offer its bosom to the night 
and pillow the starry head of darkness, it becomes as celestial as 
the heavens that come down to lie in it. In like manner the 
soul which spreads its intelligence under the starry skies, will 
itself flash with divine rays, be companied with the hosts of 
heaven and join its praise to the song of "the morning stars." 
When the earth not only to the body yields her incense, but to 
the mind her stone tables of the elder law and primeval time, 
when language like a sibyl utters its secrets and tells us the pre- 
historic wanderings of our migratory race, the mind is enrap- 
tured, filled with a quickness of beauty, lifted up by acquain- 
tance with grandeur, enlightened by knowledge of order, calmed 
by contact with infinite patience, stirred to a holy emotion. 
These beliefs so affect us because they have high mental and 
spiritual significance. Their breath is beauty, order, power, 
purpose, to perceive which is to have deeper and more serene 
life. If we ascend to belief of things more sacred, wherein 
moral ideas are distinct, beliefs touching (rod, the human soul, 
religion, duty, faith, trust, love, we see of course that such 
thoughts must influence character immediately in measure as they 
are deeply and sincerely believed. Herein lies the second condition 
on which belief affects character. Of course a mere lip belief, a 
profession of faith not understood or not deeply felt, will do 
naught. Belief must be profoundly conceived. There is a "wide 
difference between professed and realized belief. When an opin- 



158 EFFECT OF BELIEF ON CHABACTER. 

ion that is opposed to the age, is incapable of modification and 
is an obstacle to progress, at last it will be openly repudiated; 
and if it be identified with any existing interests or associated 
with some external truth, its rejection will be accompanied by 
paroxysms of painful agitation. But much more frequently, civ- 
ilization makes opinions that are opposed to it simply obsolete. 
They are relegated to the dim twilight land that surrounds every 
living faith; the land, not of death, but of the shadows of death, 
the land of the unrealized and the inoperative. Sometimes, too, 
we find the phraseology, the ceremonies, the formalities, the 
external aspect of some phase of belief that has long since per- 
ished, connected with a system that has been created by the 
wants and is thrilling with the life of modern civilization. They 
resemble those images of departed ancestors, which, it is said, 
the ancient Ethiopians were accustomed to paint upon their 
bodies, as if to preserve the pleasing illusion that those could 
not be really dead whose lineaments were still visible among 
them and were still associated with life."* That beliefs abstract 
and mystical, beliefs of religious doctrines, do affect character 
very deeply, is manifest from a glance at the history of religion. 
An intense conception of the existence and activity of evil spirits 
pursuing their mischiefs among men, coupled with such a belief 
in miraculous interferences of divine power and angels and 
demons as we cannot conceive of at this day, nourished for cen- 
turies the horrors of witchcraft. The intense images of hell and 
of the salvation of only a few of mankind, images intensely con- 
ceived beyond all understanding by us at this day, produced the 
fierce reign of agony, despair and religious terror in the middle 
ages; created the tortures, fires, persecutions, dungeons and in- 
quisitions by which men sought to compel the wayward into the 
one way of salvation which was the church ; turned the mind 
from morality which could not atone for error of creed, to doc- 
trinal compliance which was the one condition of salvation, and 
thereby produced those extraordinary examples of devout crim- 
inals which puzzle our minds, — men cherished by the church, 
scrupulous in doctrine and devotion, while yet doing atrocious 
crimes and living shamelessly. The same beliefs incited zealous 
church fathers and their successors in ecclesiastical authority to 

*Lecky's History of Rationalism. 



EFFECT OF BELIEF ON CHARACTER. 159 

maintain the excellence of pious, frauds, wherein to deceive and 
lie unblushingly whenever they thought thereby to convert a 
heathen or reclaim a heretic. Still more revolting was the kin- 
dred notion, widely taught, that no faith need be kept with a 
heretic. 

Nothing is plainer than that beliefs when intensely con- 
ceived, really taken into the heart, do affect character mightily. 
It is a common saying that a man is good in spite of his creed. 
This is impossible. No man is good, nor can be, in spite of his 
creed, his real creed. He may be good notwithstanding what he 
assents to; but he cannot be a good man in spite of what truly 
he believes and conceives in his soul. Men are not now calm, 
simple, honest, merciful and tolerant in spite of the orthodoxy 
of old times, but because they have no such orthodoxy. Five 
hundred years have not changed the human mind. If men now 
truly believed and conceived the creeds which they only repeat in 
words, they would be like the medieval men, with the same 
traits which in them were the fruit of real belief and mighty con- 
ception. It is noticeable that the calm, quiet, liberal, gentle- 
manly, charitable orthodox people, are those who think not at 
all but take their faith assentingly, or those who for soundness 
in the faith have but doubtful repute. 

But if one cannot be a good man in spite of his belief in 
bad and degraded doctrines, can he be good altogether in spite 
of his assent to them ? I said he could be upright in spite of what 
he assented to; can he go quite unharmed by his assent? No; 
verily no. His assent is harmful, weakening, undermining ; be- 
ing careless and heedless, a thoughtless and unearnest avowal of 
deep and sacred things, the assent casts down the elevation of 
the mind, the power of the understanding, the rectitude of rea- 
son, the watchfulness of conscience, moral earnestness for the 
truth. The insincere state of mind thus is gendered which has 
been called a characteristic of the present age, — an age, it is said, 
"destitute of faith but terrified at skepticism," ''in which people 
feel sure, not so much that their opinions are true, as that they 
should not know what to do without them."* I like not this 
description of this age. I believe it not. Yet it describes 
truthfully many men of this age. 

*Mill, ' On Liberty." 



160 EFFECT OF BELIEF ON CHARACTER. 

Now, since I take it as plain that belief affects character in 
proportion as the belief has a moral element in it and is deeply 
conceived, and that no one can be a good man in spite of his 
real creed, I recur to this good truth, namely, that there are ex-" 
cellent men in all faiths and shades of faith, and that this fact 
shows that the beliefs which most affect character in this time 
are not those commonly supposed. The era of dogmatic theol- 
ogy has passed away. Woe if it return! But it cannot return! 
Except in seasons of dreary business stagnation, and then only 
by bad appeals and shocking means of excitement, men are filled 
not now with frenzied fear of danger to their souls. The 
natural, healthy man goes now about his business honestly, does 
good to his neighbor kindly, lets the priests alone, and is uncon- 
cerned about salvation. The times have changed ; the old theo- 
logical doctrines are uttered still, but it is only with lip-service. 
They are not deeply conceived. Men have given their minds to 
vast enterprises of commerce, philanthropy, morality. They are 
occupied with digging the earth for its treasures of knowledge 
and of wealth, with social ills, with political problems, intem- 
perance, poverty, crime, ignorance, hospital, prisons, libraries, 
schools. This is well; it is very well; great good comes of it, 
and more yet is to come. 

But let us not forget the deep conceiving of God which 
made so solemn and so devout much great and saintly life in 
times far gone. Deep was the conception of the being and the 
presence of God, even with many ignoble and undisciplined 
thoughts of him. And it cast a holy light around it. May not 
an equal conceiving of God and present looking unto him arise 
and abide with us, and spread again a holy light, raise again a 
rapt vision, a joy, — especially seeing that our thoughts of him 
are so much grander, purer, more truly like unto him ? If we 
conceive deeply of the Fatherhood of God, there will be fruit of 
it in a kind brotherhood unto men. If of God in creation we 
have deep conceiving, then shall we know what "the divine 
order" means, faith shall be enlightened, resolution strength- 
ened, trust lifted up, repining quelled. If the Holy One, who is 
Eternal, be conceived and established in us, how can stand piti- 
ful tricks, business falsehoods, insincerities, intemperance, com- 
promise, court of vicious power? These will be impossible. 



EFFECT OF BELIEF ON CHARACTER. 161 

They will fall to pieces by neglect, because men look away from 
them to the Eternal Holy Unity of God in things. If men con- 
ceive truly the voice of God in their own soul, which is wont to 
tell them more than "seven watchmen set above in a high 
tower," then they will be quiet that they may hear, true to rea- 
son and conscience, understanding that religion is simple and 
inward, building the true church and "holy of holies" in "private 
worth." 

To this deep of conceiving let us aspire. It is natural. It 
will arrive. Let us seek unto it and hasten it. Meantime, des- 
pise not any pure ethical earnestness, nor dare to call it religion- 
less. Give glory to the moral devotions of this time, devotion 
to man, to liberty, to higher justice, to social fellowship, to the 
conviction that love must be an element of calculation in economical 
and political ]jhilosophy. So far as these live in our time, the 
time is one of inspiration; and they live very much in noble 
souls, and make very many souls noble and generous, and are 
"a saving health to all peoples." These are the devotions, these 
make up the doctrine, without true belief in which no man can 
be a good man, which whoever disbelieves will be a bad man, 
and whoever believes and deeply conceives will be made a good 
man by them. To state these moral devotions in one creed, it 
is this, that Eight is Right, and Wrong is Wrong, and no power 
can make one into the other or to be like the other or to bear 
the fruits of the other. This is the creed which stands mightily, 
which makes character; aud no man will be a bad man who 
conceives mightily that Right is Right and will bear the fruits 
of Truth; and no man can be a good man in spite of believing 
that Right and Wrong are but little different, customs, not prin- 
ciples, and will bear like fruits. To this purpose here I will 
quote words from William Salter — since I can devise none bet- 
ter, nor so good — a man whose words move me "more than with 
the sound of a trumpet," from his noble discourse on "What 
Ethics can do for Us" : 

" The moral laws are neither effects nor things that happen, 
nor is their contrary conceivable — they do not exist for ends 
beyond themselves, but to dominate all other ends ; their victory 
in a universe, a universe transfigured by them, would be its own 



162 EFFECT OF BELIEF ON CHARACTEE. 

reason for being — a real end, a consummation, beyond which no 
greater glory could be. No man can ask, without cause for 
shame, why should he do justice, why should he love? These 
are his life, the things for which he exists — ay, if he wished to 
be just for some ulterior gain, he could not do so, for justice is in 
the heart, is on principle or it is not at all; and he who prac- 
tices it for profit, or to gain notice or applause from man or God, 
dishonors what is sacredest in the world. 

That right and justice actually rule the world may be open 
to dispute, but that they ought to, that they are supreme over 
all else, that oar part as men is to help make them rule, that 
human life has this as a part of its ultimate law and aim — of this, 
the one may be as sure as that the earth is under his feet; and 

sense of it seems to lend infinite dignity to this passing life of ours. 

* % * 

To know that in a given situation there are many ways in 
which we may go wrong and only one in which we can go right, 
that we may miss our goal as well as attain it, that things do 
not necessarily work for our benefit save as we choose the good, 
that the invisible Kectitude may be shown in undoing us as well 
as in making us prosper, and that always beyond our longings 
and the most imperious cravings of the heart is the question of 
what we are really worth — with what solemnity may such 

thoughts affect us! 

* * * 

The task for us to-day is to make our religion ethical and 
to make a religion of our ethics. I suppose we all feel it — relig- 
ion in any high sense is not the fact of our time. We have 
our institutions to which we point with pride, but religion is not 
one of them; we give our wealth to its service, but not our 
hearts; we are 'moral,' but not on principle; that which made 
the early church sublime — the transcendent hope, the sense of 
the sanctity of heaven about to descend and touch the earth — is 
not with us ; the fires of the heart are so low that we smile at 
those who conceive great hopes for mankind. I appeal to you, 
young men, disown such skepticism and be the bearers of moral 
ideas to this day and generation. Trust your heart and dare 
for justice and the right in every department of human life. 



EFFECT OF BELIEF ON CHAEACTER. 163 

Nurse in yourselves not only charity, but hearts 'of steel to 
fight down the proud.' Open your souls and drink in faith and 
courage with each new dawning day. Surrender yourselves, first 
of all, to the moral sentiment, since only those who are right can 
set things right. In a word, take these slighted moral princi- 
ples, behind which the Power of powers is hidden, and make a 
religion of them. The sublime is after all not far from the com- 
mon day; we have not to reach after it or travel for it; we have 
but to turn the eyes inward, and there it is ! — native, constitu- 
tional to us, the life of our life, the soul of our soul, an Infinite 
Majesty waiting to transfigure us, to rescue us from our mor- 
tality, to make us deathless with itself." 

This simple creed, that Eight is Eight, Wrong is Wrong, 
and one cannot be made to serve for the other, and each will 
bear its own fruits, the one unto life, the other unto dea^h, this 
is that without true conception and belief of which no man in 
any religion or sect can be a good man; but it flourishes in all 
sects, in many names and with no name ; and in all sects, whoso 
believes it in very truth becomes a good and noble soul, enrich- 
ing mankind. But now this one simple creed I will state under 
three beliefs, which are needful, which mould character; and 
no man can be a good man in spite of not believing them: 

First, we must hold fast to the belief, and deeply conceive 
it, that we ought to improve, and can. Equally to duty and the 
ability we must hold. No man can grow in nobleness who be- 
lieves not that he can. To deny the capacity is to overturn the 
duty and efface acknowledgment of it. This is the proper effect 
of the doctrine of a fallen mind, ' 'totally depraved" human na- 
ture, which stands in the creeds, and has been much cried up 
and fearfully preached, though little now is said of it. Have 
men been good at any time in spite of believing this article 
of their creed? No; but because they only assented to it, 
and gave lip-service to it. What truly men have believed is that 
a man can be a good man ; and this is the belief more truly con- 
ceived now than ever; and no one can be a good man in spite 
of not conceiving truly that he ought to grow in nobleness and 
that he can. 

Secondly, we must believe in the improvement of the world. 



164 EFFECT OF BELIEF ON CHARACTER. 

It is needful to see and hold to the sight that the world has been 
growing better, still grows so, and has a divine necessity to grow 
in that manner, because it comes of God, and naught can come 
of him to fall away into evil but to grow up unto him in 
good. This sight of "the stream of tendency," of the world's 
improvement, we must hold fast, because there is no other 
joy for us, nay, nor any hope either, while we strive for our own 
improvement, but to see the like around us. Also this is neces- 
sary to faith in the Right and to deep conception that "Right is 
Right" and will bear the fruits of it; that "however things may 
seem, no good thing is failure and no evil thing is success;" that 
Right is life and growth, but Wrong is death, and "all things 
work together" to "make an evil thing as if it had never been." 

Finally, we must believe that we ought to help the world 
improve, and that we can. Herein, as well as touching our in- 
dividual improvement, we must hold fast equally fo the duty and 
the capacity. We must find our life in the life of others, mingled 
as well as apart. We must understand and take on us a solemn 
answerableness, if we know any truth, to speak it forth. We 
must conceive deeply that "no one liveth to himself" but .* 'unto 
the Lord" and for others, that he saves his life who is willing 
to give it for a holy cause, and that mysterious and holy bonds 
and currents of power unite one to another the world over, 
precipitating you and me in some mystical way under pine and 
palm alike, on deserts and seas. "Am I my brother's keeper?" 
Yes. He is a murderer who says not so. Is it too hard a duty? 
But how will you escape it ? It lies in your own life, in the 
quality of your own being and doing by which you affect others. 
Too hard? But it is only the being a man? No otherwise 
than by ceasing to be human can you cut yourself away from 
the mysterious webs of moral influence, by which each one is 
tied unto all. 

Believe in yourself, that you ought to grow noble, and can. 

Believe in the world, and love it as it is, and love it be- 
cause it rises up and grows toward the truth. 

Believe in your duty to the world, to help it on its right- 
eous way, and that you can make your life count in it. 

By these beliefs will come a brotherhood, — mankind one fold 
with one Shepherd, "led in green pastures, beside still waters." 



NATUKAL KELIGION. 

An Anchor of the Soul— Hebrews, vi. 19. 

This is the search of all religion, " An Anchor of the Soul," 
something that shall hold us, steady and stay us, bind us to the 
immutable. 

But why wish we to be anchored ? Because all about us 
there is perpetual motion ; and not only so, but perpetual change, 
the passing away of the old; the coming in of the new, discov- 
eries, amendments, new forms and statements, new truths and 
aspects, new motions and conditions for which the old offer no 
guide; and these changes often come on with agitations, terrors, 
revolutions. These are movements of life, social, political, 
moral, religious. In these changes, therefore, a common cry is 
for anchorage-ground and an anchor. If all things move, often 
tumultuously, there is the more need that we be still and stead- 
fast, unless we will be mere weeds on the tide. If things change, 
and what seem most sacred, sure, holy, continually depart 
and return no more, then surely we need some anchor of the 
soul, fixed in somewhat that shall hold us still while the current 
sweeps on. For while in the current and of it, we would not 
be tossed by it. We would use its good things, and part with 
them again if the flood tear them away, while we ride on the 
flood at anchor ! 

But to what shall we be anchored ? What can we find 
whereto to anchor which shall be firm ? 

The answer to this question is as varied as the many creeds 
and institutions of men. To these they are taught to look for 
safety and salvation. The Christian is sure that Christianity — 
and not only that, but many are persuaded that their own form 
or interpretation of Christianity — is that religious truth which is 
immutable. It will survive all the changes of time, say they. 



166 NATURAL RELIGION. 

But this Christian confidence is treated with very lofty contempt 
by the Moslem ; for he avers that good and great as Jesus was, 
God over him placed Mahomet, the last and greatest of his 
prophets, in whom revelation was perfected. The good Moslem 
is sure that Mohammedanism is the religion which shall outlast 
all changes and be the universal faith, to anchor the soul always. 
But both Moslem and Christian are derided by the calm Buddhist, 
who equally is sure that his sacred books contain the sum of 
wisdom which shall prove its title by surviving forever. But now, 
though this question, To what can we anchor? has answers as 
many as human creeds, — all the answers, how diverse soever, 
part into two great classes: The first class seeks the immovable 
principle, the safe and lasting anchorage, in Nature itself, in the 
very bosom of the moving and changing order of things. The 
second class avers that in this shifting scene there is no stable 
principle for hope and rest, that all things in the current move 
with it, and thereupon if we would not be swept away we must 
lay hold of some sure support outside of this changing order and 
far above it. 

The first class looks solely to nature, or the order in which 
we are, affirming that if there be any immutable, it must be the 
ground of this very order, bringing its diversities and changes 
into a unity; and if this immutable can be found, say they, the 
means and way must be in this self-same order itself. The 
second class looks for its rest, and its immutable, outside of the 
changing order, affirming that intervention, a special dispensation 
and enlightenment, has been necessary in order to disclose 
grounds of confidence and peace; for the " unassisted light of 
Nature " could discover none,' say they. 

Now, these two classes, which include all the many answers 
to the question, To what can we anchor? begin two modes of 
thought, two views of Nature, religion, Providence and human 
nature, which are opposed and irreconcilable; they mutually 
exclude each other and admit no middle term, and one of them, 
since they are contradictories, must be true. Either the chang- 
ing order is sufficient, and able out of itself in the simplicity of 
its unfolding, to give men the immutable ; or it is not thus suf- 
ficient and able. Either a special dispensation is necessary to 
give rest and truth ; or it is not thus necessary. There is no 



NATURAL RELIGION. 167 

middle ground and no third alternative. One is wholly right 
and the other is wholly wrong, in respect of this difference. 

Here, then, I have to set forth in one way (for there are 
many ways) what I think the right one of these two views, 
namely, that in the Nature within us and without us we have 
an all- sufficiency. I have not here to argue this in the whole, nor 
even to argue for the thought and name of God in the soul, 
which I like not to do, any more than to argue in behalf of there 
being eye-sight or hearing. I have only to show that Natural 
Eeligion comes, by reason of the thought of God, into peace and 
rest, — an anchorage for the soul. 

Simple Natural Eeligion speaks first of God, the Eternal One, 
ever present and working; and not only ever present, but present 
infinitely; filling all things, guiding, upholding all worlds ; giving 
strength for all deeds; inspiring all souls. He is the One in the 
many, the Immutable in the changeable, the invincible order 
which converts all things to himself, " out of his own beauty 
making all things fair." He is the sunlight and the mind's 
light. Of him is the eye's sight, and the soul's vision. He lives 
in the Eternal Now. To seek for him in the past is only to say, 
He was; to look for him in the future is only to say, He will be. 
But his name is "I am," and beholding him in the present, we 
say, He is. Now, Now, he lives. He works Now. Still and 
forevermore he is present strength, light, joy, truth, blessing, 
inspiration. Not only all these, but all these perfectly, now. He 
never was any nearer to this earth than he is. He is " over all 
and through all and in all" fully, perfectly, absolutely ; and at 
no time was he inspiration more directly, more personally, than 
now he uplifts his children and gives them understanding; at no 
time ruled and guided he the march of the worlds and men more 
truly, more* directly, or more powerfully, than now his perfect 
Providence overshadows all. 

But because God thus is the Living Present, the Holy Spirit, 
Natural Religion must trust the right and the truth. Right and 
truth always are safe in the keeping of God. They need no 
other Providence. The right is sure to be maintained, the truth 
surely is brought forth. Things so are framed as "to make an 
evil thing as if it had never been," and there is a steady unfold- 
ing of " the good, the beautiful, and the true." 



168 NATURAL RELIGION. 

But, again, if the right and the truth thus be safe and secure, 
and neither the malice nor the mistaken zeal of men can over- 
throw them, nor do any more than to retard them for a little 
while, Natural Eeligion infers from this the right and the duty 
of liberty of thought, of speech, of all sincere difference in think- 
ing. For to be intolerant is not only to distrust the security of 
the truth, but impiously to take it under our impotent protection; 
and to abridge another's liberty of thinking is flagrantly to 
assume infallibility and usurp the throne of God. Thought may 
be free and speech free, says. Natural Eeligion, because the truth 
is safe with God; thought and speech must be free, for what 
finiteness has right or power to decide on the truth and establish 
it by force ? 

But, again, if the truth be protected and secured in such 
way as to give, and not deny, liberty to men ; if it be safe simply 
in the works of God, neediDg no institution of men to define it 
and build walls around it; if it progress and men at all times 
move in it, and more of truth and right is brought to pass, then 
it follows, says Natural Religion, that truth and right are natural 
to the conscience and mind of man. For since they are not 
forced on him by an external power, they must come forth out 
of him by a free unfolding. The soul of man gravitates to the 
truth. The soul is made to feed on truth, to adore the good and 
beautiful, to grope after the divine and find it, and know it ever 
more and more. Religion is natural to the soul. Aspiration is 
the attitude of Its walk. It "pants for God as the hart for the 
water-brooks." History is a record of the religious struggles 
and efforts of the human heart. Forlorn, bleak and savage, in 
the forests or on sea reefs, Natural Religion has crept forth, or 
blazed forth wildly, but always come forth in some way, always 
directed the human eye above itself, whispered faintly of the 
unheard, dimly pictured the unseen. From the obscure, rude 
and coarse forms of its beginning, religion has grown with man, 
always the same natural thing, but ever purer, loftier, more 
chastened, serene, trustful and adoring. 

But, again, if religion thus be natural to man, if his spir- 
itual nature thus tend to religious truth and find its way on 
toward the light which shines always from afar, then anything 
professing to be religious truth must appeal to the soul to be 



NATURAL RELIGION. 169 

justified. And as the religious nature grows clearer and higher, 
age by age, like all the human powers, no dictum of the past can 
override its clear decision in the present. Therefore, as the safety 
of truth in the Providence of God forbids all tyranny, intoler- 
ance and persecution of men, so Natural Keligion does away 
with pretence of divine authority in the past. The soul is its 
own authority. The religious nature stands waiting, nay, long- 
ing, yearning; and all things call it forth, elevate and purify it. 
It is not created by any institution, nor depends on a form, nor 
is bound to a doctrine. It needs no special dispensation for its 
nourishment. In its divine activity it neither awaits nor permits 
an authoritative book. It is itself the source of all forms 
and creeds. It searches, examines, teaches, prophesies, makes 
churches, doctrines, priesthoods, schools, rites and mysteries. 
Christianity accounts not for the religious nature. The religious 
nature accounts for Christianity; also for the Greek, the Eoman, 
the Brahmin; for the Norse myth, the Aztec rite, the Jewish 
Law, the Persian Fire-worship, the Koran and the Vedas, and for 
all other ways by which the children of the earth have sought 
the Father. This religious nature admits of no binding author- 
ity in the past, because nothing can be more sacred to it than 
itself and its directness unto God. The past, grand and glorious 
as it is, never can hinder or forbid equal soul-life in the present. 
" The Bible as interpreted by the Church," says the Eoman- 
ist, thereby asserting a divine oracle in the past and an inter- 
preting institution in the present. " The Bible as interpreted 
by each man for himself," said Luther, thereby rejecting author- 
ity in the present but clinging to the oracle in the past. Natural 
Keligion submits the mind neither to Church nor to Bible. I 
could reject the unmistakable teaching of any Bible passage as 
easily and simply as any other thing that seemed not true. 
Consider: if any teaching of the-Bible come before my mind, I 
must either believe it, or disbelieve it, or have no view concerning 
it. If I believe it, then for that reason I accept it; my conviction 
of its truth is for me its sanctity and authority. If I disbelieve 
it, then to assent to it is simply to be false and lying. If I have 
no belief concerning it, then to assent to it without examina- 
tion is unfaithful, supine, unworthy of an intellectual being. 
Therefore the Bible stands beside me, not before me. It is a 



170 NATUBAL BELIGION. 

dear and valued companion, not a ruler. From its grand pages 
I find rivers of pure water flowing, the water which slakes thirst 
forever, a spring springing up into everlasting life. It runs 
over with inspiration and fervor. It teaches, exhorts, inspires, 
strengthens, exalts. It is woven of the fibres of prophetic souls. 
It shines with the light of saintly lives. It seems the grandest 
legacy bequeathed by any race to the world. All this it seems to 
me, is to me, does for me. But it is not my master. Neither 
does it include or glorify the truth, but the truth includes and 
glorifies it. 

Thus simply from the thought of God, with which Natural 
Eeligion begins, Keligion unfolds to these great trusts, — trust 
in the right and the true, that they are mighty and will prevail, 
trust in pure freedom of thought and speech, trust in the reason 
and moral nature of mankind, trust in the religious authority 
of the soul. These trusts will grow till they bring all religion 
to their own beautiful image and rule the deeds of men. 

Meantime, one thing is certain. The day is past when 
men knew no other or better arguments than citations from 
the Bible or the Fathers. " Why even of yourselves judge ye 
not what is right ?" Let no man be blamed for holding what- 
soever opinions; but let every man, of any opinion, be blamed if 
he violate the sanctity of thinking, outrage the spirit of truth, 
hold views carelessly, enthrone custom instead of rectitude, habit 
and prejudice instead of truth. For no man always can find the 
truth, but every man always can seek it. " It is not incumbent 
on thee to complete the work," said an ancient Jew, " but thou 
must not therefore cease from it," — words of comfort and cheer. 
It is our part to do, to think, to will, to live: What we gain and 
finish is in His hands who orders all things well! 



NATUEAL EELIGION. 



Four ideas I will choose from the several which have a great 
antiquity among men. These four are the thoughts of God, of 
Worship, of the Church, of Duty. These are not all the 
thoughts which belong to the history of the human soul, begin- 
ning afar back beyond trace of them, like as if they were too 
grand to have any beginning. Other thoughts there are, like 
Space, Time, Eternity, Immortality, Life, Love, Perfectness, all 
divine, limitless, immemorial. But these four thoughts — God, 
Worship, the Church, Duty — I single out now for this discourse, 
that I may show them in some relations to each other, and 
travel with them the road of Natural Religion. 

All these four ideas have come down to us, vast and endur- 
ing, from times so remote that no account nor enumeration can 
be given of the years or the centuries of the age of these thoughts. 
And they are found everywhere. Equally no time and no place 
lacks them. And now they survive no less strong than ever they 
were; nay, stronger. 

The first is the thought of God. This thought is universal. 
There has been no time without the thought and sense of God. 
Neither has there been any race or tribe without it. As far 
back as any trace of human reflection can be found at all, there 
lives the thought of God. And as to places, races, peoples, 
tribes, of which I have said there is not one without God, cer- 
tainly there must have been a beginning of the thought, a first 
time of it, in the mind of the early peoples of the earth, when 
they came into it during the mystery of their coming forth from 
a lower intelligence to a higher — the dawn of the human reason 
— we know not how, nor in what places, nor with what con- 
ditions. What man was before he had attained the thought of 



172 NATURAL RELIGION. 

God we can not conceive. But sure it is that no numerous peo- 
ple who have been visible to us have been void of this thought. 
I have read, indeed, that some travelers have reported some very 
wretched and low tribes to have no thought of God ; but If they 
had said that the poor creatures gave no sign of the thought, they 
would have spoken more modestly and mayhap much nearer to 
the truth ; and if they had said that the suspicious and reticent 
savages had evinced no sign of a knowledge of the Great Name 
visible to them., the reporters, they would have spoken belike more 
faithfully still. Consider the difficulty of conceiving the religious 
thoughts and feelings of any worshipers or people of any 
faith unlike ourselves, even of a near-akin faith, like Moham- 
medanism, and still more of a faith farther away, like Parseeism, 
and very greatly of a faith remote and very different, like China's 
religion, or Greek and Roman worship; consider how very hard 
to apprehend thus the signs and feelings of religion in a very low 
and half-speechless tribe; consider how reticent savages are, un- 
willing to reveal themselves to strangers and especially reluctant 
to show their religious observance, which rather they will hide 
and mask. When these things are considered, it has become 
apparent wisdom to conclude little from the reports of hasty vis- 
itors to a few abject and miserable tribes, the rudest and wretch- 
edest of the earth. Even if they have not come to the thought 
of God, what would that count? Of what import were that? 
There must be some first dawn of it over human intelligence ; 
and whether that day-spring be sooner or later matters not. 
Nay, who would look for so great a light too soon or too low in 
the horizon? Yet perhaps it were safer to think that even in 
these very rude and half-bestial tribes some gleam of that thought 
could be found if we knew how to break through the night and 
clouds of savage fears and silence. 

Wherefore I scruple not to call the thought of God universal. 
Everywhere it has come forth, nor can be found any trace of a 
time when it was not. Sometimes, when it has livetl a long 
time in the world and among a people, some are found who deny 
it j but it is as hard very often to know what they mean by their 
denial as to cleave to the hidden places of a savage mind. I have 
heard of a man — and I doubt not he was a good lover of truth — 
who said, "I am an atheist, thank God;" in which I see a some- 



NATURAL RELIGION. 173 

thing devout, a very natural and reasonable thankfulness taking 
him unaware and childlike. I knew another, who professed his 
atheism rather volubly methought, but yet seriously and sincere- 
ly; and after all, why should he not be as full of words for that 
view, if seriously he had reflected on it and deemed it whole- 
some, as for any other? But one day I heard him say, " Last 
night I listened to a good priest talk, and after him to a philos- 
opher, and they spoke of God so simply and so grandly that I 
trembled for my atheism." Ah! those good trembles! Hadst not 
learned how divine was the impulse of thy reason, how worship- 
ful thy tremblings for the truth, and how imaged from God thy 
witness unto what was simple and grand ? 

The second idea that looks forth on us from all the ages, is 
Worship. This is the expression of tne thought of God. Of 
whatever kind or virtue be that thought, the expression of it 
makes the kind or virtue of worship which prevails. Worship 
must follow from the thought of God, because expression is inev- 
itable. Thoughts and feelings are great pressure in the mind of 
a man. The soul is torn to pieces if there be no outlet of expres- 
sion. Pythagoras had a saying, Cor ne edito, Eat not the heart; 
on which Bacon commenting says, that surely a man who has 
no friend to open himself unto, is "a cannibal of his own heart." 
And the greater the thought is which the mind harbors, the more 
must be given it clearance and be canvass of expression spread 
on it to sail it into other minds. We can not keep grand 
thoughts and feelings unexpressed. They tear us, consume and 
destroy us. Hence Worship always followed on the thought of 
God, the coming forth of it into utterance and sign and psalm 
and exercise of joy. 

The third idea everywhere coming forth and older than all 
memories or records, is the Church. This arises and follows on 
the two other thoughts, of God and Worship, because these two 
come to life only in society. Man grows to them in a social 
state; or rather, by reason of his social state, for there is no 
other condition for man but the associative. Alone, man is the 
poorest of creatures, as poor as any in natural arms and in 
numbers, the poorest in digestion. But associated, man is the 
richest of all creatures, both in powers and possessions, and 
swarms even above the insects. The richest of all riches which 



174 NATURAL RELIGION. 

come to man by association and union, and indeed the source of 
all his other wealth, is his thoughts. Wide thoughts, general 
thoughts, language, comparison, arise only in social union. 
Solitude is nothingness. In it naught ever would have arisen 
in man, nor could he have maintained himself in the war of life; 
and if a man now go back into solitude in his mind, he melts 
away from himself all riches. " Who is wise alone? Who is 
great alone ? Who is rich alone *?'' Men must draw unto each 
other before any one of them can come to himself. And the 
greater a thought, the more must it be shared and the more must 
men come together to speak and enjoy it. Thus, as the thought 
of God must be expressed in Worship, so Worship must be done 
in company. Men neither can bear to be alone in so great a 
thing, nor can any one rise to the height and the riches and the 
beauty of it alone. Hence comes the Church, which is the com- 
panying of men in religion, because they must come close 
together before the thought of God or of Worship is possible, and 
then closer together by institutions and assemblies to rejoice in 
these thoughts and move each other with them. 

The fourth idea, which is as reverend as time itself wher- 
ever men appear, is Duty. This illumines all the other ideas, 
the thoughts of God, of Worship, of the Church, with a peculiar 
light, the reason of which I shall come to farther on in this dis- 
course. At present it is enough to say of this thought of Duty 
that it is the idea and consciousness of requirement. It signifies, 
not only that a man may do something if he will, nor that it is 
well for him to do it because of advantage to him; but that it is 
required of him and he must do it, by reason of some quality that 
inheres in himself. For, but for this quality in himself, an 
amazing and awful quality, he might say, even if he saw plainly 
that some deed would be good for him and for all others, " Why 
should I do it ? I will do this thing which is pleasant or easy 
for the moment and give up the thing which really is good on the 
whole and forever. I may choose as I please, and I choose thus." 
But because of a certain awful and infinite quality in himself, he 
can not say this. When he has seen and knows a deed that it 
is good for all, he knows it is required of him and that he must do 
it. He has the power to refuse to do it, but he has not the power 
to think he ought not to do it. He knows it is required of him. 



NATURAL RELIGION. 175 

Whether he can see advantage in it to himself at the moment 
matters not; still he must do it. Nay, he must do it if it be the 
immolation of him. This is the meaning of the thought of Duty. 

These four thoughts, now, are before us, beaming from 
geons primeval, from times already ancient at our antiquity, — 
the thoughts of God, of Worship, of the Church, of Duty. 

Concerning all these thoughts, when we look on them, two 
things strike us. The first is, that they change. The second 
is, that they change very slowly. 

They change because man changes. Picture for a moment 
the immensity of the changes through which mankind have come 
to their present stature. Gather them, conceive them at your 
best, multiply and enlarge them, build them up and pillar them 
and dome them gigantically; for when you have done all you 
can, you will picture them but little and see them but as in a 
small dream. Strive to span in your minds the dome between 
a Hottentot and an Emerson, a Fuegian and a Jesus. It has 
been said that belike there is more distance between a Bushman 
and a Dante than between that same Bushman and a monkey. 
Yet under and across that immeasurable arc has all mankind 
moved during the immemorial aaons. And through all the stages 
of that march, these four great thoughts have changed with the 
changes of man. 

But the thoughts have changed very slowly. Not only be- 
cause the march of man has been slow; for many other thoughts 
have changed very much more quickly. These four thoughts 
have changed slowly becanse they are such great, stable, fast- 
holding thoughts. They have been like axes around which all 
the motion and progress has revolved, which therefore them- 
selves must have a steadiness. Men have reverenced these 
thoughts so much that love and piety have kept them from swift 
changes. Therefore even yet these thoughts prevail, over most 
of the earth, the civilized and barbarous equally, very much as 
they were in the beginning. The changes of them have spotted 
the world, if so I may speak; that is, the changes have come 
here and there, in places, and among a few; the vast multitudes 
the while, whether savage or civilized, not growing very much 
beyond the primeval types of these thoughts. Thus the moral 



176 NATURAL RELIGION. 

and physical creations seem to have moved alike. 'Tis only in 
places of the earth's surface that primeval elemental ragings 
seem to have ceased, and softened airs with balms to be estab- 
lished. We may hope for a time when whirlwinds, earthquakes, 
and like convulsions, which once were more furious, shall cease 
altogether. So may we look for a time when the first forms of 
the thoughts of God, of Worship, of the Church, and of Duty, 
shall have departed everywhere, and Natural Keligion be un- 
folded to its perfected countenance of beauty. 

It remains now to ask and answer, What are the changes, 
very sure, very slow, which have come about in these great 
thoughts ? I will speak of the changes in the same order as of 
the thoughts. 

First, of the change in the thought of God. Two things 
are very distinct and notable in the primeval idea of God. The 
first is Will, the second is Separation. In the conception of 
primitive men, or of barbarous men whether they be primitive or 
not (for there is much barbarousness left yet, with all our polite- 
ness). God is, in the main, an invincible will. He is the "King 
of kings," a vast and mighty monarch who rules things as he 
will, and things move and happen because he will have them so. 
There is no reason for anything but that the mighty Deity wills 
it; no, not in himself is there any reason, but that he chooses it 
so, and he might choose otherwise ; and often in fact he inclines 
one way at one time and anon another way, moving things dif- 
ferently, carrying them one way or another, just as he may be 
pleased and will. He issues commands, as a Caesar, an imperial 
monarch, and the decrees are laws until others be sent down to 
replace them. Now, this mighty Monarch Deity has a place of 
his own wherein he dwells, according to the conception of prime- 
val men. This is the second notable thing in the far- ancient 
barbarous thought of God (and in the present barbarous thought 
of him too, for, as I have said, this early and far-ancient ignor- 
ance has not vanished completely, but still holds a court of its 
own), this notable thing, namely, that God is far parted from his 
creation. He has a throne and place, a realm in the heavens, 
where he sits in regal glory and rules the earth from afar. He 
is outside of this created earth. He has made it, as a man makes 
some cunning contrivance, and thereupon, from his throne in 



NATURAL RELIGION. 177 

the heavens, he rules and orders that it shall go aright. Hence 
come interventions and miracles. When the course of things 
turns awry, or the mighty Deity is pleased that they shall be 
different, he sends angels to do his commands on the earth, or 
he raises winds, storms, floods, earthquakes, fires, smites men 
with disease, blindness, madness, or even he descends himself 
from his throne and walks on the earth to do some great thing. 

This is the far-ancient and barbarous thought of God. What 
is the change which has come to pass in it? The change is that 
we think not now of arbitrary will in God, but of his nature and 
being. Not what he wills, but what he is, now takes captive the 
mind and heart. We conceive of God not as a maker of decrees, 
but as himself the living law, because all things go forth and 
follow after his image, after the Eternal Beauty, Goodness 
and Power which God is. Things are so, not because he wil's so, 
and might will otherwise, but because he is so, and could not will 
otherwise than as Eternal Goodness and Wisdom and Mercy and 
Almightiness are. Also, that no longer we conceive of God as 
separated, apart, he one Being and the earth a creation swim- 
ming apart from him, but that he is in all, and all in him, not 
only ''over all," but, as adds the Apostle, " through all and in 
all," "in whom all things live and move and have their being." 
He comes not at times, to amend or change things : he is ever- 
more and from everlasting in all — Presence, Life, Order, Law, 
Love. There are no miracles, no special comings, no portents 
and signs, no "dispensations;" all is one supreme and holy 
Order, which is Life and Love, a perfectness with " no shadow 
of turning." 

The second of the four thoughts which I am treating is Wor- 
ship. What was the primeval thought of Worship ? It con- 
formed to the thought of God. As God was conceived to be 
arbitrary Will seated on a throne afar, Worship was the effort 
of men to win his favor — propitiation, appeasing, pleasing, en- 
treating — to preyail on him to will in behalf of the worshipers, 
do miracles for the benefit of them, to work favor to them or 
confound their enemies. And what change has come to pass in 
this Worship ? It is a change from begging, appeasing, seeking 
favor, to pure adoration, aspiration, awe, reverence, thankful- 
ness, exaltation of spirit, fulness of heart. It is selfishness 



178 NATURAL RELIGION. 

moved up into love; the low places and swamps of advantage- 
seeking and gain-begging from God, elevated to a bright hill of 
moral singleness, — love of beauty, of goodness, pure love of them 
for themselves, veneration, awe and praise of Eternal Perfect- 
ness, of God. Worship, in the primeval thought of it, brings 
sacrifice, the idea of giving something to the Deity, to the great 
Will and Monarch, that he may be pleased and inclined unto 
the giver; but Worship in the new and perfected thought of it, 
brings self-forgetfulness in pure love, a devout up-looking and 
striving upward, a lowly and exalted rejoicing to adore. 

The third thought of the four which we have in view, 
is the Church. What was the primitive church? What is the 
change in it? It conformed to the thoughts of God and of Wor- 
ship. It has changed, to obtain an image and beauty from the 
new and purer thoughts of God and of Worship. When God 
was conceived as Arbitrary Will on a far throne, propitious at 
some times, anon angry, and willing and doing as it pleased him 
to make way for his favor or his wrath, the Church was perforce 
a powerful priesthood, charged to proclaim the Monarchical Will 
of the Deity, to declare what things would please him, what 
forms of sacrifice and worship would be acceptable, and to con- 
duct that worship for the people in the commanded manner and 
form of it. The change is to an association of men in freedom an I 
love. This is the natural, simple and everlasting Church. It is 
an association infireJom ; for the thought of God is no longer an 
image of Arbitrary Will and a throned King afar off, but of an 
indwelling Presence, whose Being is Order in Nature and Love 
in sensible creatures; wherefore men draw together in freedom, 
according to the desire of their spirit, not hindred nor driven nor 
prevented by any commanded forms, but making their own 
forms, and worshiping devoutly for very joy and trust, in what- 
ever way best they can utter their praise and love. And the 
Church is association in love; for no longer it is something to 
which men are driven because they must appease the Deity 
through his priests; wherefore it is a companying of men to- 
gether to confer on mighty thoughts and immortal feelings, 
because the great things of the soul — thoughts and experience — 
make men to need each other and to draw together for the com- 
fort and joy of sympathy. 



NATURAL RELIGION. 179 

The fourth idea of the four which we are considering, is the 
thought of Duty. What was the far-ancient thought thereof? 
What is the change in it ? Primevally Duty conformed to the 
conception of God, that he was imperious and mighty Will en- 
throned. Duty then was simply obedience to the will of that 
terrible Caesar of Deity. To bow, to be prostrate, to obey, to 
question not, to follow, to confess the Will of the Deity, that was 
Duty. Eight was whatever the Deity should will. The change 
is to the thought of Duty as related not to the mere decree or 
arbitrary Will of God, but to his very Being and Nature as the 
Eternal Justice and Holiness, and then forthwith to that same 
nature in us as his children and conceived in the image of the Eternal. 
This is why the thought of Duty so illumines all the other 
thoughts, as in the beginning I said — because it is the image of 
the Eternal in us, the involving of the finite in the Infinite and 
of the Infinite in the finite, of the Eternal in the transient and 
of the transient in the Eternal, the very nature and being 
and power of God living in us. "The safety of God, the majesty 
of God, the immortality of God, do enter into a man with jus- 
tice." God is the Infinite, Eternal and Living Ought, — Eternal, 
for it changes not, and Living, for it is Almighty Power bringing 
all things to himself by the preserving of the good and the 
destruction of the evil. And that Ought also is in us. We are 
of it, by it, can not be apart from it. It is the Life and Image 
of God in us. All our conditions are of it. Nothing ought to 
be but it must be. Nothing must be unless it ought to be. 

This change in the thought of Duty gives a different mean- 
ing to sin, larger and more terrible. Sin no longer is a mere 
rebellion to be punished with stripes, a disregard of a mere fiat, 
a dissent from a decree of a Will, but an alienation, a loss of our- 
selves and of God, a darkness and death, which is its own pun- 
ishment. 

This thought of Duty also gives to Eighteousness a great 
beauty, light and joy. No longer it is a legal exactness and 
scrupulosity, but the living of our own true life, which is our life 
because it is Eternal Life ; no longer an inquiry after the decrees 
of a Monarch, but the opening of our whole being unto God, to 
know and recover ourselves in him. 



180 NATURAL RELIGION. 



" The Koran says : 'God willeth that his law 
Should be made light for man, for man is weak. 
But hearken thou and understand : Does gold 
Feel itself heavy? Is the falcon's plume 
Light to itself? 'Tis merely to itself. 
The law of God is thy law; otherwise 
It could not be thy law. lie thou a law 
Unto thyself, and then thy life shall be 
Light as an eagle's pathway through the skies.' 



Here again I have tried to give some account of Natural 
Eeligion, which is as ancient as man, but not yet is finished nor 
come to its heavenly perfectness, but shall come, for it unfolds 
over man by a law of growth in himself. It is not Mosaism, 
nor Parseeism, nor Mohammedanism, nor Christianity, nor any 
other historical religion that ever was or will be, but the im- 
mortal unity of all of them, to fulfill which they go onward 
steadfastly because they are living things, albeit slowly because 
they are great things. "There are many kinds of voices in the 
world, and none of them is without signification." Of them all, 
the histories, predictions, tongues, knowledge, shall fail, cease, 
be done away; but the spirit evermore liveth. 



NATUEAL EELIGION. 



Often have I spoken to you of Natural Keligion; and, in 
one way or another, so long as I shall be continued in the hap- 
piness of being with you, I shall have to speak of it, whether 
under its own plain name or under credit of some other subject. 
For in truth it is all I have to teach or preach. 

That we may now have another look into the face of it, 
and see some features of it nearly, let us imagine a Jew, a 
Christian and a Mohammedan talking together. They are talk- 
ing seriously about religion. Each one also is speaking loyally 
of his own religion and setting it forth in its fullness. For this, 
each one begins with the most simple and grand ideas of his 
faith. They speak of God — of the Infinite, of the Eternal, of 
Holiness, of Perfectness, of Might and Almightiness, of Life, 
Love, Beauty, Glory, Joy. They talk of Personal Being in 
God and in Man, of Thought, of Keason, of the Will and its 
mysteries, of Feeling, Memory, Imagination, Sleep, Dreams, 
Birth, Death. They discourse of Worship, of the looking of the 
Soul with awe-full love unto the Source of it, of God the Father, 
of Man and all Creatures the Children, of Confidence, Trust, 
Submission, Piety, Faith. They converse of Duty, of the Com- 
mand in the Soul, the unlimited Ought, the Majesty of it, the 
image of the Eternal Holiness which it is in the Human Spirit. 

Of such thoughts they commune; and they all speak of 
them like as if they were one Soul with one tongue, one Heart 
with one song, one Spirit with one language. They are at one 
in these simple, grand thoughts. Mayhap if they fall to philo- 
sophising about them, they will have different ways of explain- 
ing them, or of joining them one to another, or of accounting 
for them, that they are present in the human mind; but they, 



182 NATURAL RELIGION. 

the Jew, the Christian and the Mohammedan, all have the 
thoughts, and rejoice in them, and gladden warmly each other 
in them. 

These thoughts, which they have all together, agreeing in 
them deeply and joyfully, are the substance of Natural Religion. 
But now after they have discoursed of these, in simplicity and 
unity, and have gone far together in the common grand thoughts 
with which all of them begin their religion, they come to a place 
where the simpleness of the common path divides, and divers 
ways open. Here it is found that each one takes a path of his 
own. Which is to say, without figure, that each one them goes 
on to add somewhat to the Natural Religion in which they all 
are at one, — somewhat of his own, and this addition makes the 
Natural Religion to become his own peculiar religion. 

I may compare this change (from the common substance of 
Natural Religion into the special faith and form of each of these 
three who talk together) to the differences in wines ; for these 
are but divers additions to the one bland and sweet element, 
water. The one lovely, clear and bright refreshment, colorless 
and wholesome like air, and welcome to the throat of every 
creature who is athirst, the vehicle of the spring's coolness, the 
brook's babble, the river, the ocean, the rainy murmur, the 
crystal of the snow, the silver and gold of the clouds, sparkling, 
sweet, peaceable water, this makes the greater part, nine parts 
in ten, or more, very like, of all the wines of the earth. To 
this gentle solvent add some measure of alcohol and sundry es- 
sential oils, and lo! the Falernian sung by Horace. To the 
same delicate fluent crystal bring a different quantum of spirits, 
and other essences, and the wines of the Rhine are made. To 
the same dip of a brook or catch of rain convey yet another 
measure of spirits, other aromas and oils, and the Catawba of 
our own poet's song lights its topaz eye. Thus do the Jew, 
the Christian, and the Mohammedan with the simplicity of 
Natural Religion. To it one adds a mingling and elements of 
his own, and forthwith arises Judaism; another brings to the 
same his own store of somewhat, and then is made Christianity; 
the other to the same simplicity conveys his quantum of another 
somewhat, his own addition, and lo! appears Mohammedanism. 
Each one of them makes his own faith, bearing a special name, 



NATURAL RELIGION. 183 

by adding something to that common faith of them which is 
Natural Religion. _ 

Now, when we look at these additions together, we see two 
noteworthy things about them all. The first is that they all are 
historical. It might be looked for beforehand perhaps, that the 
additions would be new and peculiar doctrines or thoughts 
joined by each of the three speakers to the common thoughts of 
Natural Religion, and that by these special thoughts or views 
the special religion would be made and marked ; or at least that 
some one of the three conversers would add doctrines or thoughts 
to evoke by them his own faith. But no. All that is of pure 
thought and ideality they already have agreed on together; it is 
in the substance of the one religion of them all, Natural Reli- 
gion. All that either of them adds is historical, either certain 
events in some place and time, or else also with these events 
doctrines or thoughts growing from the events and hanging on 
them. Thus to the fund of thought which is Natural Religion 
the Jew adds the history of Moses, and the Law which rests 
thereon, the history of the Patriarchs, of the people of Israel, 
the Prophets, the Scriptures which record all these, and the 
Doctrines, Commands, Ordinances of Worship which are 
mingled with all these sacred annals. With this historical ad- 
dition, the Natural Religion has become Judaism. To the same 
Natural Religion the Christian adds the life and teachings of 
Jesus, the preaching of the apostles, the journeys of Paul, and 
thoughts or Doctrines which came to being or awoke to higher 
life by reason of those events. With this addition the body of 
Natural Religion has become the form and stature of Christian- 
ity. To this same body of Natural Religion the Moslem adds 
the history of Mahomet, the story of the revelations given to 
him, the signs that bore witness to him, and the Doctrines, ideas, 
commands, communications therefrom in the Scriptures of the 
Koran. With this addition the Natural Religion has put on the 
countenance and garments of Islam. Thus it is to be noted 
first that all the increments by which severally Natural Religion 
is made into Judaism or Christianity or Islam, or whatsoever 
other faith, are liistoiical adjuncts, or with these also certain 
augments of ideas or Doctrines which hang on the historical 
increments ; but always histori:-a' , which is to say, concerned with 
some particular events at some time and place. 



184 NATURAL RELIGION. 

The second thing to be noted touching the addition by each 
of the believers, by which he brings Natural Eeligion to be his 
own special faith, is that the historical increment always be- 
comes more sacred and affecting to the people adding it than 
the simple-great thoughts themselves, the foundation-truths 
which are Natural Eeligion. 'Tis not Natural Eeligion which 
lifts and sways the soul of the Jew with rapture; it is what 
Moses and the Prophets did and said. Not Natural Eeligion 
moves the spirit of the Christian by the Angelus, or brings him 
to his knees on the stones of cloisters with ecstacy; it is the 
Virgin Mother, the Christ-child, the Transfiguration, Crucifixion, 
Eesurrection, Ascension. Is it Natural Eeligion which swells 
the heart of the Moslem and prostrates him at the call of the 
Muezzin ? No, not this, but Mahomet, Mecca and the Koran. 
I deny not (as, to the glory and virtue of the religious nature in 
us be it said, who could?) that the simple and grand thoughts 
of Natural Eeligion do underly and upbear all the historical 
augment, and if there were no simple religious depth by nature 
there could be no historical religion — I gainsay not this; but I 
say that for a long time, even for many ages, it is the historical 
increment which most is in the mind of the believers and is 
most glorifying and affecting to them; .and this so much is so 
that often it is seen Eeligion seems to them to hang on the 
history rather than the history on Eeligion. 

Now if we ask why it is that the historical part gains this 
over-power and so affects and flames up in the soul above the 
simple spiritual j>art which is Natural Eeligion, there are many 
reasons and causes, such as : 

Patriotism, pride and love of country or race. For it is to 
be noted in history that for long ages patriotism and religion are 
the two greatest moulding forces in human association, and that 
they lie very close together. Now the historical part of a religion 
is that portion of it which feeds the pride of race and love of 
country; for commonly it is conceived as a revelation, favor, 
adoption vouchsafed from Heaven to that people only and 
thereby glorifying them. Hence the historical part is seized on 
passionately by patriotic feeling. 

Again, the people turn to the historical addition rather than 
to the puie and spiritual conceptions because of the need of the 



NATURAL RELIGION. 185 

mind (and this the more in primitive or untutored conditions) 
to hang on pictures or symbols, or to aid thought and feeling by 
external means, by reference to times, places, persons, names, 
images, ceremonies. The mind is long and slow in journeying 
before it comes to the power of resting joyfully with thoughts, 
filled and fed with that rare atmosphere of the spirit. Men must 
have pictures, symbols, a visible region, a time, a history. 

Again, personal force has no little share in the affecting- 
ness of the historical increment in religion. For the chief 
person in the history, the prophet who br.ngs to pass the events 
or round whom they gather, always is a great and strong person, 
often very glorious, and his followers who join to make the his- 
tory are notable and forcible persons also. Hence there is a 
very strong stream of personal power, of mighty character, in 
the historical part, and before it the soul of the people bows and 
is moved deeply. 

Again, to this power and greatness of the persons comes 
Time to do its peculiar magnifying and hallowing. For if the 
founders and actors of the historical part seemed grand, inspired, 
divine to those who lived in the same time with them, much 
more seem they mighty and heavenly to the people who come 
after, beholding the great persons behind songs and praises, in 
the magnifications of time, in the mysterious clouds of ages. 
Wherefore mere lapse of time helps the power of the persons, 
the pictures, symbols, events, stories which make the historical 
augment in religion. 

Again, the historical part of a religion always is hung with 
crystals of miracles. Not only the mighty persons themselves 
are impressive and affecting, and not only has time glorified 
them, but clouds of transfiguration, portents, wonders and signs, 
overshadow them. Stories of the marvels worked by them by 
the miraculous power of their words, or wrought around them 
by divine favor, by angels and bright visions, spirits and powers, 
gather around them and shine like halos and splendors, or are 
awful and terrible. The effect of these stories is very great, for 
the desire for the marvelous and portentous is very quick in 
primitive and untaught men. Therefore in religion the histori- 
cal part, which always is full of miracles, has been precious and 
sacred to the people. 



186 NATURAL RELIGION. 

Again, the historical addition in religion creates an institu- 
tion, a priesthood. Priests arise not for the spiritual things of 
Natural Religion, but for the signs, commands, ceremonies, at- 
tractions, threats, authority of the great persons and events 
which form the historical part. Therefore all the power of 
priests, which is very great, is turned to make large and hold 
long the reverence of the people for the historical portion in 
their faith; and this they are able to do effectively. 

These and still other reasons, all of which deserve unfold- 
ing at length to show the potency of them, make the historical 
augment in religion more moving and sacred to the people for 
many ages, as I have said, than the un mingled spiritual things 
of Natural Religion. But now among these reasons there is 
one, not yet mentioned, which is a very honorable reason, 
springing from the most excellent reverence of the human soul, 
and strong with the very truth of Natural Religion itself. On 
this one reason I will ask you to dwell with me particularly. 

This reason is the following: that the historical additions 
mark and accompany a great advance and outbreak of Natural 
Religion itself. They arise at the moment, and by reason, of a 
great growth, a step onward, a new forthcoming of spiritual life. 
" In the fullness of time " — for so it always is, partly because 
the time makes the man, partly because the man makes the 
time, and they so work together that they are as one, involved 
in each other, and that all is done at the very moment which is 
prepared and ready— "in the fullness of time " arises a teacher, 
l( a voice crying in the wilderness," and the cry always is the 
same, Ci Prepare ye the way of the Lord, prepare it anew, 
make it straight in the desert." The teacher cries aloud once 
more the ancient thoughts, God, Worship, Duty. These 
thoughts he has of men. They are spoken all around him. 
They run far back. But he adds to them something out of himself, 
a new fervor, a fresh spirituality, an important stress on some 
element of them, a step onward in those changes through which 
they must pass in their slow journey unto simplicity and per- 
fectness. At first men hang only on the teacher's words, his 
teachings, the new life and deep unfolding which he gives to the 
old thoughts. But after a time, these teachings seem so great, 
they so affect the people, and he who has poured such a flood 



NATURAL RELIGION. 187 

from his soul and so awaked the ancient things seems so great 
and divine, that the people begin to hang on the teacher more 
than on the things he has taught, and when he slips far away 
into the past they hang on him the more, and remember, sing, 
adore what he was and did. Thus the teacher himself becomes 
a historical addition to religion ; reverence and adoration of him 
mingle with the ancient truths to make a new form of religion, 
a historical religion; a new faith sets out from him with a new 
name. But this is because his advent and "voice in the wilder- 
ness " marked a new refreshment of the spirit, a springing of 
the ancient truths to a great life, an unfolding of their power 
more than was conceived, an outpouring and breaking forth of 
Natural Eeligion; and often the teacher lays hold mightily of 
some great thought or advance in religion which never ceases to 
light up the earth. This is why men, in their gratefulness and 
love, hang about him and fall to a manner of worship of him, 
and make the history of him a part of their religion ; whence it 
is that all faiths show themselves to be simple Natural Religion 
with a historical increment; but the adoration and love for the 
historical part is, in origin, only another form of man's true love 
and worship in the simplicity of the Natural Religion. 

Surely here is a very excellent reason, very honorable to 
the spirit of man, why the historical addition becomes so ador- 
able, glorious and sacred to the believer of any faith ; it affects 
him even above the Natural Religion of his faith because it 
marks a high advance of that Natural Religion and a heavenly 
outbreak of the spirit; and this burst of light, sublime, spirit- 
ual, it invests with visible forms and pictures, heroic events, 
holy persons and grand discourses of them. 

To illustrate this', no more is needed than to recount the 
beginnings of the historical faiths: 

Zarathustra found the ancient Persians (so we may trace, 
or divine or surmise) divided in worship of many gods. This he 
did away, and collected all into adoration of one God, whom he 
called Ahuramazda, which means the " Living Lord who is 
Creator of all"; and the people gathered to the thought and 
worshiped the One Life and Light under the symbol of a holy 
fire, with hymns and prayers which are very beautiful and 
sublime, to be found in the great Zend Scriptures. This was a 



188 NATURAL RELIGION. 

great advance of Natural Keligion under the name and holy zeal 
of Zarathustra; wherefore they of that faith hold him very 
sacred and venerate even ahove reason the Scriptures that came 
of his preaching and power. 

Moses' great work was like to that of Zarathustra. He 
found the Hebrew tribes paying homage to many deities, very 
likely each tribe most to some tutelar deity of its own. Moses 
chose among them one grand and austere deity, named Jahveh 
(or Yahweh), whose character was holy and severe, and him 
Moses proclaimed the One Most High and Holy Lord, " beside 
whom there was none else." to be worshiped with " clean hands 
and a pure heart," according to an ethical inspiration called the 
Ten Words or Ten Commandments ; and after many genera- 
tions and terrible sublime struggles, this One Supreme Lord, 
this high thought of God, much ennobled during the long con- 
flict, prevailed and filled the Hebrew Spirit. This was a great 
orth-pouring of Natural Eeligion; wherefore Moses and the 
Scriptures that gathered to him, in whose name the advance 
was famed, became very affecting and sacred to the Jews, and 
even overcame all reason and fact, so hallowed did the people 
makeit. 

Christianity arose in a protest of spirit against form. The 
Jewish hallowing of Moses and of the ceremonies and traditions 
that hung on his name, became an intense formalism from 
which the life wasted away. Jesus arose and cried aloud once 
more for the life above the form. " Is not the life more than 
meat and the body than raimant?" said he. This principle 
with many applications pervaded his teaching. It was his one 
great burden, his perpetual " voice crying in the wilderness." 
Not the traditions but the private heart! said he; not the elders, 
nor even Moses, but your own soul — there are the fountains of 
authority, the "sources of astonishment and power"; not any 
time nor place, nor ceremony, tradition, rite, is needful to wor- 
ship, but only the pure adoring spirit in the heart. Thus the 
veneration of Moses, which came to pass because of an outburst 
of the light of Natural Eeligion under his name, had become 
such a narrowness of sympathy and of rite, such a fury of zeal, 
that Natural Eeligion could hold its way only by dethroning the 
history which was elevated by a former glorious advance of Ee- 



NATURAL RELIGION. 189 

ligion. This was the work of Jesus. His simplicity was a 
direct return once more to Nature and to God, an outbreak of 
the spirit. Therefore his name, and the discourses, events, 
stories, Scriptures which came of him or grew around him, drew 
to themselves a vast reverence, and men fastened with adoration 
on the history which was the visible body of such a spiritual 
benefaction; so that the hallowed history became dearer and 
more affecting to men than the Natural Keligion which first had 
hallowed the history, and has continued so throughout Christen- 
dom to this hour. 

Buddhism, so far as we may apprehend dimly that gigantic 
movement in illumined shadow, which exists in "a cloud of 
transfiguration," followed a like course with these other faiths. 
Some persons have denied the existence of Buddha, called also 
Gautama, Sakya-Muni, Siddartha, saying that these were but 
names for a vast movement of faith among the people of India. 
But there must have been a mighty person in that great awaken- 
ing, of whom those names preserve remembrance. He led the 
people away from caste, from divisions and from priestliness, 
from Brahma and other deities of the Hindu religion to a purer 
thought of what is divine, from gods to God. Here therefore 
was a great advance of Natural Keligion, both in divinity of 
worship and in humane love. At first Siddartha's preaching 
failed; but at last many were awakened, multitudes were drawn 
to him. After he died, very little is known for a hundred years 
of the religion which hangs on his name, and it nearly vanished 
from India, which still has little of it, though being its birth- 
place ; but it spread widely to other regions, till now it has em- 
braced one- third of the human race. And again, as in other 
faiths, it is on the pictorial, the heroic events, the history, that 
the believers have fastened. Buddha himself became such a 
centre of Divinity as Brahma had been before, and all 
manner of stories, wondrous miracles and mysteries, very abund- 
ant, were deposited in the history like dew from a humid air 
on ground made ready. This happened, as in the other faiths 
it did, because a great bursting-forth of Natural Beligion con- 
verged the people's minds with awe and love to the historical 
events of it, and created other pictorial traditions, that the people 
might rejoice the more by vivid images. 



190 NATURAL RELIGION. 

With Islam, the youngest of the great world-faiths, the 
record is the same. Arabia was peopled with many tribes and 
many gods. Mahomet arose, and before that light in the east 
the troops of gods fled away, as Milton pictures the flight of the 
old mythical deities at the birth of Jesus — Appollo, " with hol- 
low shriek the steep of Delphos leaving," " Peor and Baalim " 
forsaking their dim temples, and " sullen Molock," and 

"The brutish gods of Nile as fast, 

Isis and Orus, and the dog Anubis haste." 

Mahomet received the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, Moses 
and Jesus, but he said that he was raised up for the final reve- 
lation, the last and chief of ail prophets. He proclaimed One 
Infinite Eternal Presence, One God, One Life; he sung many 
hymns, prayers and commands which became great Scriptures to 
the people; and all this he did, as always it is done, in the 
right and by authority of his own soul, not hanging on any 
other name, nor deriving from the past, but preaching and com- 
manding in the name of the Living Present. Here was a forth- 
breaking of Natural Keligion, which has come down in the 
watch-cry of the faith, " There is no god but God and Mahomet 
is his prophet." But again it is on the latter part of this watch- 
cry, on the historical part, that " Mahomet is the prophet," on 
this it is that the people have fastened their awe, tneir passion 
of belief. Mahomet's words, writings, deliveries, rhapsodies, are 
to them absolute and divine. They have a vast awe of the writ- 
ings and bend to them — to them, the historical, visible part. 
And by brooding on the history they have become very fierce 
and fanatical, — foes to all who adore not the same history, how 
much soever they have the same Natural Religion with them. 
And yet this they do in truth because of the power in them 
of that same Natural Religion ; for they cling to the history and 
are fierce for it because, in very truth, it was the occasion or 
attendant of an advance of the religion of the spirit up from a 
lower form and out of the bondage of another history. 

Now, if I have conceived truly and spoken clearly, I have 
set forth Natural Religion in one way of viewing it, and also in 
some measure one way of the growth of it, thus: 



NATURAL RELIGION. 191 

1. The few grand and simple thoughts in which all the 
different faiths agree may be called Natural Beligion. 

2. To these simple and exalted thoughts each faith adds 
something which confers on the faith peculiar identity and its dis- 
tinction from Natural Eeligion, and from all other faiths. 

3. This addition always is historical, which is to say, events 
and persons. 

4. This addition always becomes more sacred and affecting 
to the people adding it than the simple-grand truths which are 
wholly spiritual and universal. 

5. There are many reasons why the historical part becomes 
so hallowed and affecting to the people. 

6. But there is one very great and honorable reason, 
namely, that the historical additions are events and characters 
which mark, occur with, or lead a great advance and epoch of Natural 
Religion, and by reason of this fact it is that they become so 
mighty, hallowed and awful in the people's thoughts. 

7. That by reason of the historical part becoming so 
sacred and awful, what at first was a spiritual forth-breaking becomes 
absorbed in a mere history and externality. 

8. Thereupon, after a time, a new prophet is needed, and 
arises, to bring forth religion once more from the history into 
the simplicity of the spint and the authoriy of the soul. 

If these things have been said plainly, the discourse has 
attained its purpose and may end. Let it be added only that 
this view of Natural Beligion and of one way or law of the un- 
folding of it among men, will breed some reflection in us, if we 
be wise; and gentle behavior, with charitable carefulness, will 
follow. We shall observe that it is easy for the Jew, the Chris- 
tian and the Moslem to understand and delight in each other in 
discoursing of Natural Eeligion, which is the common ground of 
them; but it is hard for any one of them to enter into another's 
historical additions and conceive how they affect the other and 
how they seem so great, glorious or awful. Nay, the same his- 
tory that to one seems divine will seem to another but lowly 
human, and even grotesque very like. So that the religions 
and sects understand not each other, and the earth hath this 
strange and sorry spectacle, namely, the different religions or 
sects falling on each other with wars and cruelties because they 



192 NATURAL RELIGION. 

differ in their historical additions to the simplicity of pure Ee- 
ligion in which they all agree. Surely here is a sight to touch 
the heart with anxiety, with fear, with self-watchfulness, with 
thoughts of brotherhood. 

Moreover, if they of one faith find it so hard to enter into 
the mind of another faith, can each one be sure that he truly 
has conceived the inner life of his own faith and entered into it ? 
Surely not always. As the peoples give themselves to the out- 
ward additions, the historical part, more than to the simple 
beauty of the spiritual, so any one may dwell on the poorer por- 
tion of even the historical part, leaning him and hanging his 
thoughts on prodigies, strange happenings or stories, appear- 
ances, spectacles, shows of external power; thereby passing by 
blindly the sublime character, the noble elevation of soul, the 
divine tenderness, lowly simpleness, patient fervor, which shine 
in the history, in the great person of it. 

Let us be modest and careful; examine ourselves, look 
well after any bias, rise above the historical part unto simple 
Natural Eeligion, but be affectionate to those who still sit in the 
historical. Let us " covet for ourselves earnestly the best 
gifts," which are freedom and understanding, and the spiritual 
conceived above the formal and historical; but let us take also 
the " still more excellent way," which is love, brotherhood — to 
(i dwell together in unity." 



NATUBAL EELIGION. 



"On three things stands the world, on Law, on "Worship, and on Charity." 
— Sinion the Just. 

This is the season of growth. Night dances her short 
hours in gossamer and leaves her crystal slippers on the grass. 
The birds drink dew; the flowers drink; then come nests and 
fruit. Under the rock the fern unrolls, and waves, lissom, up 
and down to the sky and the river. The roads are bordered 
with sun-dew, and over the white fragrant banks of it the 
golden dodder creeps. The splendid pine through its needles 
pours jets of aroma. Chestnut, grape and sassafras store in 
burr, berry and root the subtle flavors of air and rain. 
Millions of cells, like little harbors, ebb and flow with the tide 
of life. The oak lifts the currents high in air; racing up and 
down the stem, they build around it the wood-binding of another 
year. Or low on the soil in blue-eyed grass and maiden hair, 
the life-force makes seeds and spores in them to grow their 
memories in another summer. I but tell the things I see around 
me in this one zone; but other zones have other things, shapes 
and beings. 

How long God waits for his gains! With what patience, 
while the earth grows, according to the image of it in him, all 
the summers and winters of millions of years; till on it, when 
rocks have crumbled to soil, cool waters flow, and plants spring, 
with healthful fruits, the mind of man comes forth, and the 
breath of the sky awakes him unto religion. For the heart of 
man, rooted beneath and growing upward and loving all around, 
has its law of growth, which is of God, and never broken. 
Keligion dropped ready-made no more than delicate tree or still 
tenderer flower of this geologic time, or town or book or art 
of men. 



191 NATURAL RELIGION. 

Now the course or law of the growth of religion may be set 
forth in many ways; for many different elements occur and 
mingle in it; and accordingly as one sets forth from one or 
another element, he will state in different terms or ways the one 
fact of the growth of religion among men. But all the different 
terms and manners of statement describe only the one thing, 
religion, which is to be known only by all the descriptions of it 
together, as if different beholders were to describe a mountain 
from the east, north, west and south, and from many stations 
between the great cardinal points, and the mountain could be 
known in its wholeness only by all the descriptions of it. 
Already in other sermons foregoing I have spoken of Natural 
Eeligion, trying to unfold it from one thought or another, since 
from almost any thought one may go straight by reason to the 
heart of Natural Eeligion; for all thoughts lead to it, as in a 
garden all paths to the house for which the garden was made. 
In truth in all the discourses of this volume, by whatever titles 
called, I have been speaking only of Natural Eeligion, that the 
book might bear just this one burden; for I have naught else to 
teach, and no other religion than simple Natural Eeligion, because 
I am not immersed, nor can be, in Christianity, nor in any other 
historical faith. Again in this discourse I will follow the unfold- 
ing of Natural Eeligion from a thought or view of it by which I 
may state its law of unfolding thus: Religion follows a growth 
fro n a selfish to en unselfish form. 

I will speak from a text taken from Simon the Just, the 
only Scribe or Eabbi of the Great Synagogue whose name has 
come down to us, from 450 years B. C. His words, as I have 
found them rendered are " On three things stands the world, on 
Law, on Worship, and on Charity." But this is not a truthful 
rendering of the meaning of the ancient Eabbi, at least to our 
modern understandings. It would be correct and plain to render, 
" On three things stands the world, on the Law, on the Temple 
Worship, and on Alms-giving." For this was the meaning of 
the venerable scribe. To him there was no law but The Law, 
the Mosaic Law, to him no sufficient rite but the service in the 
Temple, and beyond these the great virtue was alms-giving. Or 
thus I may express it, namely, that the ancient Eabbi divided 
the people into three classes, — first, the Eabbinical class, the 



NATURAL RELIGION. 195 

Teachers and Guardians of the Law, secondly, the Priestly class 
who conducted the sacrifices and service in the Temple, thirdly, 
the common people whose best function was no more than the 
giving of alms. 

But although this was the antique scribe's meaning, and 
therein there is no fruit for us or for this present time, yet his 
words may be taken in a large meaning, full of instruction. 
Verily, in this large meaning of them, it is true that on Law, 
Worship, .Charity, these three, the world stands. Unto them 
and by them Natural Eeligion unfolds. Now, for a little, let us 
go back even far beyond the ancient scribe, that we may follow 
the growth of Natural Eeligion unto these thoughts, Law, Wor- 
ship, Charity, and then onward by means of them. 



Eeligion has two stages or grades in its history, the selfish 
and the unselfish. From the selfish form, wherein Eeligion 
begins, it moves on into a pure and unselfish form. These stages 
or forms are very distinct; yet they shade id to each other by 
delicate degrees; and the selfish stage itself has two forms or 
stages, also distinct, but also lapping and shading one over the 
other, the form of fear, which is first, and the form of desire, 
which follows. I will try now to draw briefly the outline of these 
two stages, and follow the logical steps, which are also the histor- 
ical, by which the lower form grows up into the higher. 

First, of the lower form. I have called this the selfish 
stage because the nature of it is that religion is a chase of advan- 
tage or enjoyment here or in the hereafter. This pursuit often 
becomes an intense selfishness which swallows up every other 
motive; whereupon, in its early form, it appears most violently 
in fear. 

Mandeville remarks that " fear is an elder motive to religion 
than gratitude," because "an untaught man would never suspect 
that the same cause which he received good from would ever do 
him hurt ; and evil, without doubt, will always gain his attention 
first." The savage state, which is the primitive state of human- 
ity, does encounter benefits and good things in nature, yet the 
strange, monstrous and horrible engages his imagination above 
all, and his first gods will be those whose power he has to fear, 



196 NATURAL RELIGION. 

whose anger to propitiate. It is a common philosophy that 
the early condition of mankind has an analogy in childhood. 
The savage state is truly an infancy, marked by all the traits of 
childhood, — simplicity, inexperience, ignorance, naive imagin- 
ation, credulity, excitability, fickleness. These agree together 
to surround primitive man with an atmosphere of the super- 
natural. His ignorance places him in a wilderness which is a 
tangle of things he understands not. His wonder or fear takes 
fire at every portentous accident. His credulous and quick 
imagination gives personal shapes to his surprises, and his 
inexperience leaves him unguarded by any notion of continuity 
or order. Hence he peoples all things with beings and powers, 
imps or angels, who are busy in his affairs and work magic 
around him. 

Man at first is weak, poor, unarmed. He has no tools, and 
no natural weapons. His jaws are feeble, he has no claws, no 
tusks, he is not swift. Even if more civilized, yet still he 
is ignorant, has few arts, no science. Yet being such, he is in a 
world of startling things, frightful violences, famines, pestilences, 
earthquakes, floods, comets, eclipses, meteors, hurricanes, hail- 
storms, lightning, thunder. What account can he give of these 
things? Even yet we struggle with them; even now many 
wrestle vainly to combine them with religion. They occur so 
rarely that the uninstructed man can not make place for them 
in his common experience, yet so often that they keep him 
affrighted and must come from powers not far off, but very near 
and busy with his affairs ; and they are so mighty or fearful that 
he is quelled by them. What can he conceive save that these 
terrible things come of powers by which he is beset? And 
thereupon, fear of these powers, and prostrations, prayers, cries, 
sacrifices, to appease them, will be his religion. 

An intense realization of magical or miraculous agency ail 
around him and busy with him, occupies the mind of uninstructed 
man. Therefrom comes a religion of fear and prostration. 
This is what we behold plentifully when we study any early 
records of religion. 

Thus when a pestilence attacks the Greeks under the walls 
of Troy, Apollo is seen seated in the sky, shooting arrows at the 
Greeks; this causes the havoc; and the plague is not stayed 



NATURAL RELIGION. v 197 

till they discover the cause of offense and appease the angry 
god. In like manner, throughout the classical myths, the gods 
continually are stirring up storms and earthquakes, opening 
chasms, raining fire, confusing the minds of unfavored persons, 
and fighting bodily in the battles of men to bring victory to their 
favorites. In like manner, in the Jewish scriptures, Jahveh 
covers the land with darkness and vermin, turns the waters to 
blood, kills all the first-born, overwhelms in the sea the enemies 
of his chosen people, casts down the walls of hostile cities, 
destroys rebel towns with fire, and turns a woman into a pillar 
of salt for looking back at the spectacle. Likewise, in the Chris- 
tian scriptures, God covers the earth with darkness, rends the 
temple veil and raises the dead from their tombs at the crucifixion 
of Jesus; stills at a word the roaring storm; speaks articulately 
from the sky; assists the apostles in fishing; makes Jesus 
invisible when the people wished to kill him, and was ready at a 
word from the Christ to supply legions of angels around him. 
According, also, to the pagans of the first Christian centuries, all 
the sufferings of that time were wrought by the gods in anger 
at the Christians, and at every fresh evil the Christians were 
persecuted to appease the wrath of the heathen deities. 

In like manner, throughout medieval history, this form of 
thought ruled. The displeasure of God with individuals, and 
even nations, continually was manifested in calamitous events. 
In the early centuries the Christians retorted curiously on the 
pagans. They agreed that many evils which fell on them- 
selves were the works of the heathen deities; but they said 
these deities were demons furious with the worshipers of the true 
God. 

Now this notion of powers supernatural, magical, often 
capricious, sometimes even vengeful or impish, busy with human 
affairs and close besetting, this notion, which springs of the fears 
that attend ignorance, reacts severely on the terror, continually 
increasing it, and thereupon the increased terror multiplies 
again the invisible fickle spirits or gods who swarm about men, 
until a vast and agonizing fear has been caused. In very fact 
there has been produced such a condition of religious terror and 
despair as now we hardly can imagine to ourselves.. It was so 
in the Middle Ages. I mean the sufferings caused by the con- 



198 NATUKAL RELIGION. 

ceptions of hell, the Devil, and his minions. * With this we 
find — and always it is so — the good and kindly powers even as 
much magical, necromantic, miraculous, which is the same as 
to say capricious, as little conceived under forms of order, as the 
malicious and evil powers. Miracles abounded everywhere 
worked by God through the words of living saints or by their 
relics after they had died. This connection is inevitable. Never 
anywhere will be found magical wonder-working imps without 
also a deity of miracle and caprice, arbitrarily issuing and 
changing his will, sometimes one way, sometimes another, 
repenting him of one course to begin another, and all with 
marvels and signs breaking forth from quiet Nature; and never 
will be found these miracles and portentous works conceived of 
a good deity but also there will a "reign of terror" by the 
magical invisible powers of bad angels and demons. For selfish 
hopes of heavenly marvels, and terrors, whether toward God 
or toward devils, are overthrown only by the conception of 
order. 

Of this tnought, Order, I will speak very soon. But now 
I have to note a change which has come over religion, from this 
terrible honest fear to an easy insincere desire. For when men 
fear so painfully, 'tis sure they believe very honestly and 

* The medieval terror, consternation, agonies, aroused by these images, 
can be known truly only by a detailed stu^y of those times. "The agonies of 
hell," says Lecky. in his History of Rationalism, " seemed then the central fact 
of religion, and the perpetual subject of the thoughts of men. The whole 
intellect of Europe was employed in illustrating them. All literature, all 
painting, all eloquence was concentrated upon the same dreadful theme By 
the pen of Dante and by the pencil of Orcagna, by the pictures that crowded 
every church, and the sermons that rang from every pulpit, the maddening 
terror was sustained. The saint was otten permitted to behold in visions the 
agonies of the lost, and to recount the spectacle he had witnessed. He loved 
to tell how, by the lurid glare of the eternal flames, he had seen millions writh- 
ing in every form of ghastly suffering, * * * tortured by pangs that seemed 
ever keener by the recurrence and shrieking in vain for mercy to an unpitying 
heaven. Hideous beings of dreadful aspect and of fantastic forms hovered 
around, mocking them amid their torments, casting them into cauldrons of 
boiling brimstone, or inventing more tortures more subtle and more refined. 
* * * Sometimes it was said the flames, while retaining their intensity, 
withheld their light. A shroud of darkness covered the scene, but a ceaseless 
shriek of anguish attested the agonies that were below. * * * We can never 
conceive the intense vividness with which these conceptions were realized; or 
the madness and the misery they produced. For those were ages of implicit 
and unfaltering credulity; they were ages when none of the distractions of the 
present day divided the intellect, and when theology was the single focus upon 
which the' imagination was concentrated." I refer to this painful subject, 
omitting some of the historian's most painful details, in order to show to what 
a horror of frenzy and misery religious terror may be carried. 



NATURAL RELIGION. 199 

intensely, and speak no vagrant, wanton, loose, easy syllables, 
but mean what they say and truly realize it in the heart. 

At last, slowly, as it is with mental changes, the first form 
of religion, the form of fear in the selfish stage, passes away. 
Or mayhap it is more true to say that the fear-form declines, is 
obscured, becomes inoperative, though long lingering in a degree, 
especially if some weakness or sickness befall a man, or if a 
plague fall on a people. But, however, whether it pass utterly 
or suffer abeyance, the form of fear is followed by the form of 
desire. Desire is the second form of religion in the selfish stage 
of it. Fear wanes with the increase of knowledge. Science 
does away with barbarous terrors. Keligion, therefore, being no 
longer pricked with misfortunes and pains to be escaped, yet 
being selfish still, has naught to turn on but advantage or 
pleasures to be gained. Desire then has succeeded to fear. I 
know not that this change is an advance; at least, I suspect 
there is a loss of sincerity and earnestness, whatever other good 
quality may be gained. For though fear be the elder motive to 
religion and more forcible than gratitude or hope, yet it is plain 
that always there must be desires mingled with the fears. What 
tortures or disasters men fear with such anguish, they must 
desire to escape. The horrors of hell, or earthly misfortunes and 
losses, will be put in contrast with the bliss of heaven. Images 
of sufferings will be both deepened by pictures of pleasures and 
assuaged by the hope of them. Tae delights which balance 
pains will be material or spiritual, noble or ignoble, as the pains 
may be. Therefore the Moslem faith, which has as many and 
frightful horrors of a material hell as any religion has, looks also 
to great ravishments of equally bodily pleasures; and though the 
Christian heaven has been conceived not so pampered, yet it is a 
most inglorious case, an idleness of singing and resting, a loung- 
ing with crowns and harps, which has in it the very mortality of 
physical and spiritual gluttony. The middle ages of Christianity 
were not lacking in imagination of the felicities of the elect; 
nay, the sight of the pangs in the pit were to whet the pleasures 
of the redeemed. Fear is a passion so terrible that it overflowed 
the desires even opposite it, and covered society with its own 
turbulent dark waters. But still, men saw in the heavens, how 
much soever with despair, the happy city. A faint hope of 



200 NATURAL RELIGION. 

heaven was a portion of the anguish of the fear of hell. There- 
fore I say I know not that when men outgrew the fear, but their 
religion still lay prone in desires, they had come to more 
elevation, for it seems belike that they lost in sincerity, in intense 
reality of believing; and being still selfish, pursuing pleasures 
for themselves by means of religion, what elevation was there, 
what ennoblement? To be still self-seeking but less in earnest, 
is not elevation. Scientifically men had advanced; they had 
more knowledge, by reason of which they were lifted out of fears ; 
they were more rational, cautious, critical, less credulous; but, 
while they professed the same belief as before, and uttered the 
words of it volubly, they lost in truthfulness, feeling and fervor. 
For if the religion of desire, as now we hear it taught, setting 
forth salvation and heavenly dwellings for the objects of religion, 
— if this were intense, deep, sincere, moving and all real to the 
soul, like that of the middle ages, could it exist without an 
opposite intense fear of hell? Therefore it seems to me that the 
disappearance of fear while desire remains so asserted and 
preached up, is more than a disappearance of fear; likewise it is 
a decline of fervor, a dominance of the letter, assent, without 
conviction or conscience. Surely it has an ill look, and very 
significant, in the popular religion that so much it is based on 
salvation, while yet no one shows any fears of hell, or at most 
has some concern for his neighbor. For this is still to make 
religion a selfishness, while it has not the excuse of being 
terrified, no, nor the fervor nor the honesty of the terror. These 
seem severe words, and I like not to seem severe nor to judge in' 
such a manner; but I am constrained to the words. For the 
mind of the age seems to me to have disowned the church of it, 
and the salvation-religion or desire-religion which is taught 
therein; whence it happens that some persons repeat the old 
words and even rally to them if they be attacked, without know- 
ing that really they believe them not; because fervor and reality 
in religion so waned when the ancient fears fled, but the old 
desires that were with the fears, but weaker, still held religion in 
a pale selfishness; and other persons repeat the old words, and 
walk in the paths and companies of them, suspecting shrewdly 
that all fervor and reality is gone, or even knowing well enough 
that they believe not the words which they utter, not able to be 



NATURAL RELIGION. 201 

true, either unto the old doctrine, or to thought, to take it up 
bravely and candidly. 

But the religion of self-centred desires shall wane, is 
waning. At last, when both the reality of fear and the preten- 
sions of the salvation-creed pass away, then the selfish stage 
ends. Terror makes way for faith and trust; aspiration takes 
the place of desire; the unselfishness of pure religion, grown 
unto its true stature, begins. The morning dawns. The 
glimmer comes, faint it may be, a mere ray in the east yet, but 
prophetic. " The jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain 
top " ; the gleam of his eye is Law. 

Law — this is the first of the three radiations or thoughts on 
which Eabbi Simon the Just says the world stands. 

Gradually knowledge grows. The number of things that 
can be explained increases, and after a time increases swiftly. 
One thing is compared with another, and common likenesses are 
discovered which run through many things, divide them into 
groups, and are laws of the action or nature of the things. Men 
learn to expect explanation of all things, and to wait for it, in 
accordance with regular and unwavering method or law. The 
taste or passion for the magical or miraculous dwindles. The 
supernatural, arbitrary, portentous, yield to the idea of Law, or 
universal and immutable Order. When this idea is discovered, 
seized, loved, then miracles, signs, portents, the magical, the 
ghostly, seem not only untrue, unproved, unprovable, but 
uncomely, repulsive, nay, as it were, intrusive and impudent. 
No amount of reputed evidence can hold them in place. Who 
knows not, if at all he has attended to the matter, that a 
thousand times more evidence, and better, is to be had for the 
magic of witchcraft and the miracles of medieval saints than for 
the marvels of the Jewish Scriptures, or of the Christian ? Nay, 
these magical stories of saints and imps were believed for many 
centuries very passionately, with an intense realization in com- 
parison wherewith a Christian's belief in the Scripture-wonders 
is as nothing. Yet they have passed and gone. They have gone 
quietly. They have stolen away. It was not through argument. 
They were not debated down. They simply disappeared before 
the rising sense of Law and Order. With them the wonders of 
the Old Testament may be laid away tenderly without much 



202 NATURAL RELIGION. 

offence; and every one who has studied of it in freedom and 
rationally, understanding the mental processes of this day, per- 
ceives that the miracles of the Gospels soon will follow ; or if not 
soon, yet follow; it is but a question of time. The mind shrinks 
from them; and properly. For the idea of Order has arisen, 
divine Order. This claims the mind's whole homage and ardor. 
We see in nature no more of caprice, no longer a drift of mira- 
cles, a play of magic, but symmetry, beautiful unity, serene, 
unbroken Order reigning everywhere, peace, power, perfectness; 
a progressive order wherein truth and goodness triumph, 
the everlasting incarnation of God. 

Before the thought of Order all fear takes flight. How can 
there be room for terror? Is not man of the Order, and in it? 
What can await him hereafter which is not also part thereof, 
adapted to him, agreeing with his nature no less than making 
his destiny, accordant with his being and the right and due aim 
of the creation of him? To be part of a perfect Order is to be as 
safe at all times as at any time; for at what time can anything 
befall us which is not fitted unto us and engrafted in the nature of 
all things. "The moment the idea of Order is conceived," says a 
philosopher,* " reason feels for it a sympathy so profound, true, 
immediate, that she bows down herself before it, recognizes its 
consecrated and supreme right of control, adores it as a legitimate 
sovereign, honors it, and submits to it as the natural and eternal 
law. * * * This idea, this law, gives light and strength, by 
showing us that the end of each being is an element of universal 
Order; it communicates to these ends, and to the instinctive 
tendencies of all beings a respectable and sacred character, which 
they had not before. * * * Good, true good, good in itself, 
absolute good, is the realization of the absolute end of the 
creation — is universal Order. The end of each element of 
creation, i. e., of each being, is one element of the absolute end. 
Each being aspires towards this absolute end in seeking its own 
peculiar end, and this universal aspiration is the universal life of 
creation. The realization of the end of each being is then an 
element of the realization of the end of creation, that is to say, 
of universal Order. The good of each being is a fragment of 
absolute good. It is on this account that the good of each being 

* Jouffroy. 



NATURAL RELIGION. 203 

is really a good. Thence comes its character. And as absolute 
good is. worthy of all reverence, and sacred in the eyes of reason, 
so the good of each being — the realization of its end — the 
accomplishment of its destiny — the development of its nature — 
the satisfaction of its tendencies, which are all identical, become 
equally sacred and worthy of reverence. " 

Thus from knowledge, from the looking at things much and 
long till they show us their likenesses, their places together, 
their groupings, arises the idea of Law, Order; which means 
the unity or unwavering action in Nature, wherein is no chance 
and no miracle, but a steadiness and perfectness of unfolding in 
one manner and with one course. This is the first thought on 
which the Eabbi says the world stands. Now, when the concep- 
tion of Law, Order, is attained, understood, taken into the heart, 
then comes Worship, which is the second thought on which the 
Eabbi perceives the world to stand. With the conception of 
Order, the purity of true Worship comes forth. For now we 
have entered on the unselfish and pure form of religion. In the 
selfish stage, beginning in fear and continuing into desires 
which, albeit weakly, survive the fears, when men are harried 
with frights, superstitions, conceptions of arbitrary powers good 
and evil busy with human affairs and working spells, — in this 
stage of religion, fear and desire drive men to such praying and 
imploration as is supple beggary, a priestly canvassing and dun- 
ning of the heavens in which, however men cry to the Deity, and 
fear him, they adore nothing but their own advantage. This is 
the time of altars, sacrifices, prostrations, propitiations. But in 
the unselfish stage of religion, when the conception of Order has 
chased fear out of being, and desire is changed, then fears and 
desires are followed by trust and adoration. It is the time of 
simplicity, spirituality, freedom, pure Worship. Men then are 
not disposed to utter so much praying; yet they are more prayer- 
ful. They will not be guilty at all of a miserable mendicancy, 
sueing for outward things, for pleasures, ambitions, riches, 
honors. But the heart will be filled with pure Worship, because 
God is, Eternal Goodness is. Men cast not themselves on the 
ground with cries and beating of breasts, but stand, and lift up 
the head with the glory of adoration. Not now being filled with 
clashing hopes, fears, wishes, about himself, his religion being no 



204 NATURAL RELIGION. 

longer a supplication or paying court for advantages to himself, 
but in truth the very forgetfulness of himself, what can man's 
life and religion be but a looking forth and up with wonder and 
joy, an inspiration unto the Eternal Life of God! And this is 
Worship, undefiled. Of this worship, joy, faith, which is prayerful 
but not begging, not suit-preferring nor petition-making, a 
poet speaks — 

Ere on my bed my limbs I lay, 

It hath not been my use to pray 

With moving lips or bended knees ; 

But silently, by slow degrees, 

My spirit I to Love compose, 

In humble trust mine eyelids close, 

With reverential resignation, 

No wish conceived, no thought expressed ! 

Only a sense of supplication, 

A sense o'er all my soul imprest, 

That I am weak, yet not unblest, 

Since in me, round me everywhere, 

Eternal Strength and Wisdom are. 

Four great thoughts grow around the conception of Order, 
which nourish Worship and raise it high with praise and joy. 
They are Beauty, Grandeur, Beneficent Providence, The Eternal 
One. I pray you go with me in a few words of each of these 
thoughts, that we may feel the more how much and surely 
Worship follows the conception of Order. 

Beauty is an inhabitant of Order. Order is a very beautiful 
thing to the mind. Not only elevated and entitled to veneration 
intellectually, but very beautiful and affecting to the sense 
of what is fair and graceful. Confusion never can be Beauty. 
Nay, so true is this, that even an assembly of things every one 
of which is very beautiful will not be a beautiful assembly if the 
things be thrown together without order. In very deed, the 
disorder of them all would have a face so ugly that the beauty of 
every one thing would be lost in it. And even if there be 
arrangement, a marshalling and allotment of them, yet if this 
lack symmetry and proportion, or a steadiness toward one 
thought or aim, there is no Beauty. Conceive a face in which 
every feature should be in its due place, but no part matched 
with another, the two eyes of different sizes and colors, the nose 
of such largeness as would be enough for a giant and the mouth 
as small as would fit a fairy, — and there were no beauty therein, 
because in the arrangement there would be no real Order. For 



NATURAL RELIGION. 205 

Order is an arrangement with a mutual support among the parts 
and a meaning or drift of them all together as one thing. In 
like manner if a little child be beautiful, yet he is so only in his 
place in the Order which is growth and life ; for if we think of 
an infant staying as he is and growing not, he is distressful, 
uncanny, unbeautiful. Thus Order which is life, motion, inter- 
play of parts supporting each other, full of meaning to the mind, 
having one end which continually is followed, a good and gracious 
end visible indeed in the Order, the end being never obscured 
nor the Order disarrayed, no litter made in it, no second thoughts, 
no lumbering, no ferment, no mending — this Order is Beauty. 
When it hath taken hold of the mind that all Nature is such 
Order, with never a jumble nor repentance nor necromancy in it, 
no breaking of ranks in it, no invasion of it by Divine Power to 
make up for inversions or embroilments in it, but all one high 
array, one unswerving course, one convoying Order, then what 
a Beauty arises on us in all the visible creation, which we look 
on with a new rapture. There is no Beauty to the eye like that 
which hath also the mind's eye at it, when serene and perfect 
Order is known in nature and the beauty of it is felt in the soul. 
This beauty breaks on him who hath entered into the knowledge 
of Order. It never leaves him. It fills both eye and mind, and 
then riseth like a spring in his spirit unto Worship. Whether 
he look at a flower or at the forest, at a rill or at the ocean, at a 
lamp or at the stars, at earth or the heavens, 'tis all one; in 
them all is the one holy Order, and together they are perfect 
Beauty. How worshipful, how full of might to uplift, cheer, 
thrill and bless the soul is this sight of supreme Beauty ! It is 
more than shapes and colors, than flowers and trees and gardens 
and fountains and landscapes, than mountains, continents, seas; 
it is all these brought into one, and never one of them seen but 
it hath a measure of the countenance of them all, by the one 
Life, Spirit, Law that is in them. What more can stir up wor- 
ship in man than such knowledge of Beauty ? 

Another perception that attends Order is Grandeur. This 
follows hard on Beauty. I know not but they be twins of a 
birth, and flash from Order together. For such a vast Beauty as 
Order reveals is a kind of Grandeur itself, and there is no 
Grandeur but is beautiful. But when we lift our thoughts from 



206 NATURAL RELIGION. 

this Beauty to the Infinity of it, when from this trundling globe 
and its heavenly lamps, wherein Order is so beautiful, we survey 
by mind the invisible heavens, infinitely beyond sight, when we 
conceive the millions of spheres thereof which no doubt do 
sweep, invisibly to us, around the mighty suns whose flames no 
more than twinkle to us over those eternities of space, and when 
then we conceive that from the most far of those suns with his 
worlds about him break forth other firmaments and stars, and 
from the confines of them again others, without end and without 
beginning, and through all this the majesty and glory thereof is 
the same Order which here is Beauty and Peace, and never 
anywhere is it broken, but perfect throughout all, One Holy 
Order, One Power and Perfectness, Infinite, Eternal, "with no 
variableness neither shadow of turning," when this sublimity is 
thought of, then how doth worship awake, how doth it come out 
of sleep "like a strong man to run a race," how doth the soul 
sing with great psalms, for the joy and glory we have of this 
Infinite Eternal Sublimity in which we are naught, yet by 
knowing it, are caught up in an image and fellowship of it 
which is our being and bliss! And how also doth veneration 
arouse itself, and a grandeur is induced in our own souls, 
a forbidding and shaming of all littleness, of heat and whimper- 
ing and faithlessness ! We cannot edge complaints and groans 
into this sublimity of Order. Murmurs, mutterings, bemoanings, 
brawlings, plaints, mutiny, petty willfulness, are shamed and 
silenced. 'Tis desecration to bring them to the holy presence of 
Order in Sublimity Eternal. We are stilled, rebuked, lifted up, 
chastened. This is Worship in the spirit. 

Beneficent Providence is another thought which attends the 
conception of Order. It is most dear to the soul, and from all 
experience continually looks forth on the soul with a most 
pleasing and gracious face of majesty. From all experience I 
say Beneficent Providence looks forth. I mean from individual 
experience, our own and that of other persons around us, and 
from collective experience, which is the history of mankind. If 
we view the history of human kind, what a march doth it show ! 
Not a mere motion or swaying, not a running to and fro and 
passing in and out, like a crowd agitated; but a steady march 
forward, like an army in motion. How many things in history 



NATURAL RELIGION. 207 

are very dim! What numbers of questions we cannot answer! 
How innumerable the years and the swarms of men! What a 
scroll of life reaching to "the morning stars," of which we can 
but decipher a few characters close to us! But over all the 
immensity, through all the distance, the multitudes, the clouds 
and questions, one thing is clear, nor is there any distance so 
dim but it shines therewith, namely, the irresistible gain of the 
good and recession of evil! Everywhere the good is victory and 
power; evil is weakness and failure. What is good lives; what 
is evil dies. " The stream of tendency " hath never a halt in it, 
but sets unto the good and away from the evil without ceasing. 
" All things work together " " to make a bad thing as if it had 
never been." Steadily move on the true things, the peaceable, 
the faithful and righteous, the things honest, just, pure, lovely, 
of good repute. They can not be stayed. The evil things, not 
honest, unjust, defiled, unlovely, of ill name, fall behind and are 
left. They can not come up. The triumph of goodness and 
prevailing of truth, the defeat of iniquity and disappearance of 
error, are in the Order, the Law, and go on therein immutably. 
The Infinite Order which gathers the stars and earth into one 
thought and one manner of going forth, with all things in them, 
gathers also the moral universe of men into one thought and 
one manner of life, one aim and testimony. So is it very 
plainly to our view of the history of mankind. Now if also we 
look at our own individual experience, when or in whom was it 
ever any different? Every one finds that by good deeds he is 
made stable, strong, cheerful, full of life. He is walled about. 
He can not be shaken. He has no fears. If he have done 
right to-day, and spoken the truth, to-morrow or the next week 
or the next year must agree with what he has done and said this 
day. It is impossible that he should be shamed in it. " The 
very stones of the field are in league with him." To what he 
has done that is right, and to what he has spoken that is true 
he need not give a thought more or take any heed of it. It will 
agree with all that can follow, and will work mightily. It 
belongs in the holy Order, it is under all-mighty Law. Let any 
one examine, moreover, how wonderfully he is led, how perfectly 
the one Order suffuses all his affairs, his incomings and out- 
goings, how blended he is with all other persons and things into 



208 NATURAL RELIGION. 

one Kingdom which "man did not make and cannot mar," how 
things come trooping around him to work with him, to help, to 
show the way, to open the door, to shut it, to forbid, to bind, to 
set free, all being done in one supreme Order which at the same 
time is busy with every other person and creature and by its 
dealing with them is dealing thereby with him, and by what it 
opens or shuts to him is touching all others wondrously and 
conceiving for the whole and for every one in the whole, — all 
this in one Order, one Law, overbrooding, infinite, eternal, in all 
and yet under all as the sea is in the waves and under them — 
let any one examine and know this! Then behold also how the 
same Order brings forth the beauty and light of human happi- 
ness — how full of joys homes are, what carolings heard, what 
comforts, successes, triumphs, arts, songs, loves, what a multi- 
tude of kinds of pleasure, what inexpressible joyful relations of 
heart to heart and life to life, what perception of beauty and 
what amazing beauty to feed the perception, what thrills of 
thought, what moral glories, what discoveries in the earth, the 
forces thereof, and the substances thereof, for it hath no end to 
the secrets of its bosom! Ah! I know well the sad things over 
against this radiance of happiness, the want, the pain, the 
needless cruelties, the hard lives. But I see two things also 
very plainly, — that the most and the worst of the miseries of 
man are made by man, and they need not be if he would not; 
and also that, with all the hard things, the happiness and 
enjoyment are more, as anyone may know if he will but count 
gratefully at their worth, or even count but to number, the 
flying instants of little satisfactions. And as to the first of 
these things which I see, namely, that men do make most their 
own miseries, which we can do because the divine Order includes 
our wills and not destroys them, I see a third thing very plainly, 
that the Order so moulds and guides us, and hath a will sur- 
rounding ours in such heavenly manner, that the happiness is 
growing greater and the wretchedness less, that never there was 
so much health and hope and pleasures as now, nor so widely 
spread among great numbers of men, and that this is the Order 
and the Law of God. And when this is seen, this Beneficence 
of Providence, this triumph which is Peace, Truth and Right, 
this Order which is Love, must not praise follow? Can song 



NATURAL RELIGION. 209 

be dumb? Must not Worship arise — because " he hath beset us 
behind and before and laid his hand upon us " ? Surely unto 
this meaning of Order, this Love in Law, adoration will hasten 
forth even as a child runs to his mother. 

Again — to come to the fourth of the great thoughts which 
I have said attend the conception of Order — the knowledge of 
Order rouses Worship because it leads straight to God. If all 
things contain the image or impress or effluence of God, which 
is but to say that they come of him, then we may be very sure 
that we shall have knowledge of God if we find the points in 
which things resemble each other. This is what Ave name the 
beholding of the One in the Many. It is the perception of 
the nature and image of the One Source in all the manifold 
creations. This is so great a joy, so quickening to the spirit, 
that Emerson has said that to generalize which is simply to set 
forth the resemblances of things, to find in a host of objects a 
unity of ideal, to discern the One in the Many, — this, says 
Emerson, is to receive an influx of Deity, and " hence the thrill 
that attends it." 

The conception of Law, of Order, refers both to action and 
to form. As to action, it means that under the same conditions 
the same motions, actions, results, will follow uniformly. Thus 
the sun, the moon, the planets, the earth, move continually as 
always they have moved, the chemical affinities show themselves 
always in one manner, and all the effects of light, the manner 
of vibration of sounds, of heat rays, the mass-motions of which 
mechanics take notice, which retreat into invisible molecular 
pulsings, followed thereinto by science with experiment, 
reasoning and speculation, — all these act uniformly, always 
the same under same conditions, with no failure nor caprice 
nor chance. However we observe, however we try and test, 
it is no matter, always there is one way of action, never over- 
thrown. Try as many things as you will, each one leads you 
straight to the uniform mode of its agency, till every substance, 
every pulsation of things, seems a syllabication, declaring One, 
One, One, One, like the beat of a rhythm, unceasing. To perceive 
this, to be affected by it and enter truly into the heart of it, is to 
know of God, the eternal One, to look on the countenance of 
Divinity, Reason, Perfectness, the same yesterday, to-day and 



210 NATURAL RELIGION. 

forever, "as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, 
worlds without end." 

But the conception of Order includes not only action but 
form. Order in form means the persistent resemblances which 
assemble objects into groups, and these groups into larger 
groups, keeping them distinct from each other: for example, the 
resemblances or common traits which mark objects of the 
mineral kingdom, and again those which define the vegetable 
kingdom, and those again which denote members of the kingdom 
of animals; or again for example, the resemblances which mark 
several trees as apple trees, and again the wider but fewer 
common traits which collect apples and pears in one group • the 
marks which assemble several bushes into a group as rose-bushes, 
and the wider but fewer marks in common which gather roses, 
strawberries, raspberries into a group; the common likenesses 
which mark several trees or shrubs as plums, and the wider but 
fewer marks which bring together plums, cherries, apricots in 
one group; and finally the wider but fewer resemblances which 
connect all these groups, assembling apples, pears, roses, straw- 
berries, raspberries, plums, cherries, apricots, in a large family 
of plants, all bearing a family likeness, which is to say, a number 
of uniform marks or traits of structure, and called the Rose 
Family. Very beautiful and delicate to the eye of loving 
study are these likenesses, types, ideals, common thoughts, 
which run like a stream of spiritual unity, like the blood of a 
pure race, through many kinds and countless individuals of 
plants, assembling them into these mystical kinships. 

And what is this unity but the appearance of God unto us ? 
"Wherever we come on a unity, which is to say, a collection of 
many things under one thought, there we behold the One in the 
Many, who is God. There we look on the face of God. Again 
and again I recur joyfully to the Zoroastrian words about God, 
" Him whom I exalt with my praise I now see with my eye, know- 
ing him to be God, the reality of the good thought, the good 
word, the good deed." Him whom I now see with my eye? Yes, 
verily. Look I not with my eye on the very shapes of the 
mystical kinships of plants, animals, all creatures ? We can go 
no road of unity but straightway we stop in God. What is this 
creature beside me? He is a visible man. And what is a 



NATURAL RELIGION. 211 

visible man? He is an animal. And what is an animal? He 
is one of an immense concourse of creatures who have life. 
And what is life ? Life is One, Eternal, Divine, the Being of 
God. What is this other creature beside me? It is a rose. 
And what is a rose ? A plant. And what is a plant? A plant 
also is one of an immense concourse of living beings. And what 
is life? It is the Being of God. What is this other oreature 
beside me? It is a grain of sand, Hath it any shape? It is 
a crystal of silex. And what is silex ? It is a mineral. And 
what is a mineral? It is one of a vast concourse of things 
which have existence, but no life apparent to us. And what is 
existence? It is the Being, the Presence, Power, Appearance of 
God. Thus with anything, go but a little way with it in its 
likeness to other things, and you come soon to be stayed in God. 

Unto this perceiving and knowing of God Worship arises. 
Praise and song, psalms, thanksgiving, adoration, Worship, are 
the utterances of us unto the One, over all and through all and 
in all, which is the holy Order of heaven and earth. Thus it 
is that Law and Order, which is the first thought on which 
Babbi Simon the Just says the world stands, leads soon and 
straight to a pure Worship, the second thought on which the 
Babbi establishes tne world. 

But there is a third thought on which the Babbi says the 
world stands, namely, Charity, which is to say, a kind fellowship 
and broad love among men. This Charity follows on the con- 
ception of Order and the exalting of Worship. In many ways 
Order, which draws men to Worship, and Worship which draws 
men to God, do draw men close unto each other. And by this 
drawing together in Charity they come anew unto God in Wor- 
ship; for well has it been written, '• There have been occasions 
when I have felt that if others cared for me as I did for them, it 
would be, not so much a solace for loss, as an equivalent for it 
— a certain real thing in itself — a touching of absolute ground 
among all the changes of phenomena. * * In the mere 
clinging of human creatures to each other, * * I seem to 
touch the eternal." 

Order in creation inclines men unto each other because it 
is so great a thought. Great thoughts draw men closer together 
than any other thing. Great interests may unite them com- 



212 NATURAL RELIGION. 

pactly, in plans and enterprises. Great discipline may make 
them stand together solidly and more as one body, facing any- 
thing. Common pleasures may collect them good-naturedly. 
Common dangers may make them run together for defense. 
Common sufferings may awake a sentiment of brotherhood in 
them. Great passions, of whatever kind, may cause them to 
utter one voice like a forest in a storm. But only great 
thoughts can draw men into a fellowship which at once is 
rapture, peace and power. Wherefore, because Order is a 
thought so grand and inspiring, it draws men together most 
wonderfully, and makes a beautiful front of them to face a 
creation made so fair to the mind. This fine front of men 
together is charity. 

Again, the thought of Order and Law in all things makes 
Charity, freedom, wide fellowship, because Order shows plainly 
that truth advances by the reasoning together of men, not by 
violence to one another's bodies, nor by exclusions or partitions, 
but by their natural and free conversation ; which is to say, by 
orderly unfolding, by the lessons of experience, by observation 
and experiment whereby knowledge is gained. And by such 
evolution trie truth must advance, and can not be stopped, nor 
even hindered unless men hinder it by their blind furies with 
each other. When Order shows us plainly that we have not 
to take truth under our patronage or protection, to push forward 
one thing or another by violence and persecution, calling it 
truth, or by hating those who differ with us and drawing away 
from them; but that only we have to confer together in peace 
and good will and the truth will come forth more speedily, 
— when this is seen, men draw together closely by as much as 
they desire the truth, and a beautiful Charity obtains. 

Again, the thought of Order induces humility of spirit; for 
it reveals a steady unfolding of knowledge, a progress, by a 
mighty Law. No man can do much to hinder this movement, 
however he may rage, slay, burn, banish. Neither can a man 
do much to help it on, save by a broad conference and conversa- 
tion with his fellows in Charity; for the numerosity of ill con- 
clusions in the past, the busy bevies of errors, show that if a 
man be very sure of himself he may be over-sure, and that if he 
strive to force forward any view of his own by other influenca 



NATURAL RELIGION. 213 

than affectionate conversing about it, he may be but making of 
himself one more beast of burden straining ungainly to pull a 
stone-load of folly. Wherefore, how sturdy and noble soever 
may be a man's conviction that he hath a truth, the thought of 
the infinite truth-unfolding Order of God, which unmoved hath 
taken care of hosts of errors in which men have been stuck as 
fast as he in his own view, will teach him both humility and 
patience. By these virtues men will draw together and converse 
in Charity. 

Moreover, again, these great thoughts make men too grand 
for strife. The mind grows in excellence, beauty, exaltation, 
like to the nature of the thoughts it feeds on. He who lives 
thoroughly with the thought of Order is seated above strife. He 
is not so much patient with disappointments, but rather they 
cannot reach up into his quiet. Not so much he endures the 
long periods of the moral creation, but rather he shares with 
them and is of a like mind, being lifted up by the wings of Law 
and Order to a share of the virtue of the Life of God, to whom 
a thousand years is as a day. Wherefore by these great thoughts 
men draw together because they become great like to the 
thoughts, too great to strive with one another, great enough for 
love. 

Once more, again, as Order exalts Worship, so Worship 
exalts man to man and covers all creatures with a sanctity. 
When Worship hath come to pass, above sacrifices and implora- 
tions, when religion is an adoring spirit with no taint in it of 
self-seeking and of following after gain, then he who looks 
purely up unto Divine Life and Love will be reverent of every 
man who may do the same. Whosoever worships purely the 
unlimited Mercy, Holy Life, Power, will look with tender con- 
science and heart on all beings who are gathered with himself 
under the one heavens stretched out as a tent over all. Whoso- 
ever adores a Fatherhood will know that thereby all creatures 
are in a brotherhood. Wherefore pure Worship, which comes 
of Order, draws men together in Charity and comes quickly unto 
the love and unity of all souls. 

The long sermon is ended. In these last thoughts of it, 
Natural Keligion hath brought us to a blessedness of peace as well 
as to greatness of thoughts. There is no selfishness like to the 



214 NATURAL RELIGION. 

religious selfishness, no cruelty like to the creed-cruelty, inflam- 
ing men against each other in the name of Eternal Love, that 
each army conceives to be tender and saving unto them, yet will 
have them to slay the other army. But Natural Eeligion hath 
come to this, that " one soul is as precious as another," and no 
one hath virtue to decide on the nearness of any soul to God. 
Pure aspiration is the same thing evermore and the place of it is 
" holy ground," whatever altars be there of whatever name, or 
no altar palpable. We are in the holy Order of God, and can- 
not fear. We see in this Order " that truth is strong with the 
strength of the Almighty," and was never " put to the worse in a 
free and open encounter," and we need no swords for it. We 
come into a spiritual Worship, in which all men have the same 
part ; whereby must be Charity ; for who then can be cruel for a 
creed, or undo the brotherhood which cometh of the One Father 
of all? 

Here is greatness of thought, and greatness of feeling, and 
greatness of joy! 

In this sermon is another statement of Natural Eeligion. 
There are other modes of statement of it in other sermons in 
this volume. And Natural Religion has many statements, 
because it covers so vastly over human experience, — thought, 
uplook, joy, sorrow; and this is one statement of it, namely: 

On three things stands the world, on Law, on Wor- 
ship and on Charity. 



AFTEB-THOUGHTS AND HEADINGS. 



Pp. 26-28. I take the following with admiration from 
William M. Salter: 

"There is another characteristic of the moral life. Not only 
is it something more than good morals, but it is something 
more than good feelings, good instincts, generous impulses and 
the like. We also distinguish between actions done from con- 
viction and those done from mere impulse. No one questions 
that it is an advantage to have good impulses; but they are 
not morality; and there is a trouble in dealing with an impul- 
sive man which we are all sensible of — viz., that we can never 
be quite certain of him beforehand. It is charming to find our 
friend so ready and willing when he is in a good mood; but 
suppose something has crossed him — what a change! We say 
to ourselves we had better see him some other day. Now, with 
one actuated by principle the case is different. No one, perhaps, 
can absolutely prevent fits of depression overtaking him now 
and then; but one can say, " I will strive not to let them in- 
fluence me so far as my action goes," and can with more or 
less of evenness and regularity do what he feels is duty. Now, 
it is what we thus do in accordance with some rule, or, as we 
say, on principle, that has, strictly speaking, moral worth; 
what we do at random, because we simply happen to be in the 
mood for it at the time, is without this distinction. The moral 
life, then, is the life within so far as we bring that life under 
some kind of a rule. So long as we let our thoughts and feel- 
ings take their natural course, being now attracted in this 
direction and now in that, yielding in turn to what is good and 
what is bad, being now just and now unjust, now generous and 



216 AFTER-THOUGHTS AND READINGS. 

now selfish, now truthful and now false, we have not really en- 
tered on the life of which I speak, or if we have entered, we 
have not gone farther than the threshold. * * * 

Good feelings are an advantage to any one, but it is a sorry 
mistake if one takes them for goodness; their true office is to 
lead us, to impel us toward goodness ; but if we stop with them 
and are somehow satisfied with ourselves because we have them, 
our responsibility may be heavier than if we had been destitute 
of them altogether. You read some book or hear some one 
speak, or listen to some play with a noble motive or hear some 
music that awakens your better self, or look at some canvas 
that portrays a purity, a self-sacrifice, to which you are stranger, 
and your heart is touched and you experience a series of elevated 
and delightful emotions ; but though these are all inward ex- 
periences, do not think that they are the moral life, or even a 
part of it, unless they nerve you to fresh allegiance to the aim 
you had perhaps momentarily forgotten or cause you to feel that 
you must begin to make such an aim dominant in your life. 
Morality is, after all, a matter of the will j there must be thought, 
there must be feeling; but unless these pour themselves into a 
choice and lead to a purpose, there is no morality, properly 
speaking, but only moral possibilities and predispositions. The 
moral life must commence with a resolving, a committing one's 
self. * * * Fortunate circumstances may do 

much in giving us good habits; good ancestry, a pure and lov- 
ing home, may make good thoughts, good feelings, natural to us; 
these are all a help, they predispose to real morality, but they 
do not make it. Morality is my affair, your affair — each one's 
singly and solitarily — for it is my choice, your choice, which no 
one else under heaven can make for us. The same influences, 
the same gracious advantages, may lead to it or not lead to it; 
and what are sometimes thought to be the things that make our 
character for us may instead be our condemnation, if we do not 
turn them to account. Nothing can take the place of this en- 
ergizing of our own personality. It is not merely that we must 
will in order to become moral, but morality is just willing. To 
choose, to prefer, to resolve, to strive — to do all this habitually, 
to thus turn to account every good thought and every good emo- 
tion — this ii the substance and the core of the moral life. So 



AFTEB-THOtJGHTS AND READINGS. 217 

deeply do I feel this to be true, that I would say that an hour of 
conflict, of wrestling with a vicious appetite or passion, may be 
worth more than years of happiness when this comes from no 
effort or desert of your own." 

Pp. 61-64. If, as said in these pages in the text, the past 
inevitably resolves into instances of solitary grandeur, — great 
figures, mighty persons, towering alone afar off, like mountain 
peaks from a plain, it is to be added that this tendency, which 
always exists and is effective in this present time, is especially 
active in primitive ages. And this for three reasons in chief: 
1. The progress of mankind in arts, letters, laws, peace, all that 
we mean by civilization, is simply a steady rise of the many 
against, and over the supremacy of, the few. It is the increase 
of equality and the distribution of power, replacing extreme 
inequalities (high rank and deep abasement facing each other) 
and the concentration of power. Growth of civilization is syn- 
onymous, or at least coterminous and contemporaneous, with 
the rise and eminence of the people compared to the strong man. 
Hence the strong man, the powerful, the great, the glorious, 
eminent and mighty enough even now, was elevated and con- 
spicuous still more in the ancient past, and hence even more 
assuredly than now and at a less distance in time, seemed to 
stand alone in the retrospect, all that was around him being 
melted into thin unimpressive figures. 

2. This progress of civilization, namely, the general eleva- 
tion, the rise of the many against the few, takes effect to pro- 
duce a greater number of specially powerful and expressive men, 
because of the spread of knowledge, opportunity, peace. Hence 
in the past it was only the very mightiest that rose at all, and 
these shine the more alone at a distance, because not only they 
are few but, by the necessity of the conditions, the most mighty 
natures, very rare and very great. 

3. Also, after every great epoch and glorious teacher or 
ruler, it is to be observed that there is a decline of inspiration 
for a time. A mighty era is followed by a common level, as 
plains stretch between mountain ranges. This always is so. A 
great epoch towers; then comes a level of rest and un creative 
spirit in which the people expend themselves only in adoring the 



218 AFTER-THOUGHTS AND READINGS. 

towering age before them. And from this common level or de- 
pression or rest, the mighty epoch and the persons of it seem to 
tower still more by comparison. Hence not only they are great 
but by inevitable contrast they borrow greatness also. 

P. 85. If the whole past with all its great prophets, its 
divine glories and its illustration of indwelling law, should be 
blotted out in an instant from the memories of men, humanity 
would at once begin to acquire it again, and by and by, as need 
were, would extract from itself as good Bibles as any ever found. 
All the modes of force which live and work with men would 
conspire to bring forth Eeligion and Morality, which would 
become deeper and purer by every gain of experience. 

" The Good, the Beautiful, the True," as eternally realized in 
Being and evermore waiting to be realized in ourselves, — these 
are the bases of religion on the one hand and of morality on the 
other. They approach by their fervor, when both are noble and 
profound, by the emotion, the self-forgetfulness, the strength of 
conviction, the humility, the confidence, the meditative joy, 
which both share alike, which form the noblest attitude that can 
be called faith. Whether "the Good, the Beautiful and the 
True " be worshiped in Being, which is Eeligion, or loved as 
ideals to be attained, which is Morality, they are of the same 
divinity, and move the spirit to rapture, — a rapture embrac- 
ing the intellectual ecstasy of the perception of them in the 
laws of all modes of force and all forms of existence. It is a 
great idea that lifts the soul up to where a great feeling is pos- 
sible. A principle, abstracted from all applications, may be the 
object of the purest enthusiasm, because of the beauty, fitness, 
harmony and infinite in- weaving of its relations. " More than 
once," says Guizot, " for the glory of humanity, man, by the 
force of his intelligence and scientific meditations, has reached 
to beliefs, to which there has been wanting none of the char- 
acteristics of faith, — neither fulness nor certainty of conviction, 
nor the forgetfulness of personality, nor expansiveness and 
practical power, nor the pure and profound enjoyments of con- 
templation. Who would refuse to recognize in the belief of the 
most illustrious Stoics in the sovereignty of moral good, — in 



AFTER-THOUGHTS AND READINGS. 219 

Cleanthes, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, — a true faith ? And 
was not the religious faith of the principal Eeformers or Ee- 
formed, of the sixteenth century, Zwingle, Melancthon, Du- 
plessis Mornay, the fruit of study and science, as well as the 
philosophical doctrines of Descartes and Liehnitz? And lately, 
under the idea that falsehood is the source of all the vices of 
man, and that at no price, in no moment, and for no cause, 
can it be necessary to swerve from the truth, did not Kant ar- 
rive, by a long series of meditations, to a conviction perfectly 
analogous to faith ? The analogy was such, that the day when 
his certainty of the principle became complete and definite con- 
stituted an epoch in his memory and life, as others call to mind 
the event or the emotion which has changed the condition of the 
soul; so that, dating from that day, according to his own testi- 
mony, he lived constantly in the presence and under the empire 
of this idea." 

Eeligion is " that which binds us back," says a noble definition. 
When the Morality which points forward to the end of man, and 
the Eeligion which binds him back to the living Source of his 
life, exist pure and beautiful together, then the two poles of the 
Universe, — Being and the End of Being, the Holy Father and 
the Ethical Child, verge to a contact which completes the circle 
of life and joy, and flashes light over all the web of experience. 

P. 92. When the Christians had visions and dreamed of the 
saints returning in their earthly forms to rescue or instruct, 
Athanasius said to them, — " These visions and shades of the 
saints, which appear in the temples and at the tombs, are not 
he souls of the saints themselves, but the good angels appear- 
ing in their shapes." A little further than Athanasius let us 
go. The souls of good persons here are heavenly with divine 
incarnations and shed around them the veritable atmosphere of 
God. 

P. 117. When it is asked what Eeligion has to say about 
appalling things, pestilences, floods, earthquakes, that divine 
hand-maid of humanity can stand forth and speak faithfully on 
a high place ; yet it is but a little time since with such a ques- 
tion she was whipped into a corner. For when the misery is all 



220 AFTER-THOUGHTS AND READINGS. 

gathered, then if religion have naught to do with it but to load 
it on Providence, to cry, bemoan and pray, averring that it is a 
bare, inscrutable will to which we must bow, this seems but a 
slinking away or a falling down affrighted; which is to be par- 
doned only on plea of ignorance. 

It is many years now since religion has been saying aloud 
that the Father of heaven and earth brought happiness so speed- 
ily on the earth that yet there were dangers to fend off and 
struggles needful to maintain the joy. But if the earth had 
waited for a man to acknowledge the glorious stars till the crust 
had grown too thick and the center too cold ever to be tossed or 
shaken, what myriads of years would have passed, nay, now 
still would be passing, without the ecstasy of a heart being born 
here. 

Meantime, mind and the earth have grown together, and 
with the tumults of nature mind learns to cope, when religion 
has grown great and strong. Wherefore now it is noticeable 
that these plagues, floods and quakings call not out processions, 
priests with masses, incense and prayers, as before; but that 
many pulpits have learned much better than to preach a des- 
perate submission, and that scientific observers have hastened 
to the shaking, or flooded, or plague-ridden region to learn the 
causes, the laws, the warnings, which shall give us control of 
these things, as the true child of God was meant to have. 

Meanwhile, if we know not yet why they are, still we are 
busy in them with a right piety; and religion, being healthfully 
engaged, is strong to take the fact as it is. Hence, neither is 
it luck to be cursed, nor a willful infliction to be bowed to, but 
a part of a holy order to be learned. And though there may be 
things to fear, and frightful sensations sweep over us when the 
earth rocks, yet what we have not to fear is Almightiness heav- 
ing the earth simply because it will, which is the only horrible 
terror. "Of all fears," says Plutarch, "none so daze and con- 
fuse as that of superstition. He fears not the sea that never 
goes to sea, nor the battle that follows not the camp, nor rob- 
bers that stirs not abroad, nor malicious informers that is a 
poor man, nor emulation that leads a private life, nor earth- 
quakes that dwell in Gaul, nor thunderbolts that dwell in 
Ethopia; but he that dreads divine powers, dreads everything, 



AFTER-THOUGHTS AND READINGS. 221 

the sea, the air, the sky, the dark, and light, and sound, and 
silence, and a dream." 

Pp. 126-129. Thoughts of Immortal Life. 

I. LIFE FORCE. 

Once I went out in a wild bluster of spring winds. The 
sense of exhilaration was glorious. I exulted in " the uproar 
of their joy." A great sense of life arose when I saw the 
mighty trees rocking and tossing their branches against the hur- 
rying clouds. The noise of the wind in the trees, like the roar 
of waves on a shore, spoke of a boundless power reveling in the 
mighty music. Yet not all that prodigious motion was equal 
in might to the stir of sap in the millions of cells that filled the 
spring weather with divine life, and covered the earth with 
green foliage. Nay, all the mechanics of the wind's frolic were 
only as a baby's hand for weakness compared to the molecular 
forces which shape a crystal. In the silent masonry which lays 
the courses of a gem, is the same fact of life that is in the 
roaring blast and in the waves that toss their white manes into 
the wind, and chase each other over the ocean-plain like a herd 
of wild horses. Life runs by our side in all things visible, 
audible, or perceivable by any sense, and resides in us, and is 
love, joy, will, intelligence and thought. 

This being the prevalence of life, everything is an incident 
of life, a fact of life, a vital act. And death is such an inci- 
dent of life, a part and act thereof! It comes stealing on the 
thought in its true semblance when the reason is most full of 
life. When we live most deeply and nobly, we see all things in 
their true relations, and behold death also as it is, an act in life, 
a motion, a succession from one sense to another, or to many 
senses, like the opening and closing of an eyelid, or like the 
physical changes and the skin-glow of exercise. 

This fact concerning death, that it is a mere act of life, 
and, indeed, no more a mystery than all living acts, is indicated 
by many things. Indeed, the paths to the thought of the im- 
mortal life are past numbering, 'tis impossible to count the 
intimations, I speak not of arguments, because one argues 



222 AFTER-THOUGHTS AND READINGS. 

not what stands before the eye, or smites the ear, or fills the 
soul with acknowledged ecstasy. But the intimations that fall 
on us by the way, the rain of thoughts of life and of immortal 
being shed on us out of the mystery that enfolds us, can not be 
computed for the multitude of the drops thereof. And no day 
goes by without such showers, whereby the soul is softened and 
fertilized like to the earth in those favored climates where, in 
the season of the rain, every day receives some rain, and the 
soil is covered with large delicious fruits and with wonderful 
flowers, and with insects that drink the nectar. 'Tis needful 
only that we should live well enough, nobly enough, and life 
forthwith reports itself to us as kind to kind, and kindred to 
kindred, on every side. 

II. DEFINITION BY THE HIGHEST FORM. 

If life be called a property of protoplasm, on the contrary 
possibly protoplasm is a property of life. It is the question 
whether we may sink all life in its lowest manifestation, in that 
phenomenon which involves the least of it, saying thereupon: 
" Here is the cause of life; here it comes into being; this is all 
it is; it is a property of this drop of jelly;" or whether we shall 
raise that lowest manifestation according to the indication of the 
highest, and whether we must not interpret from the whole and 
perfect structure. The habit of tracing the evolution of the 
higher from the lower form has led to the beginning at this end 
also for the definition of all products, by which the highest and 
most complex are sunk in the lowest and most simple forms 
possessing any important trait in common with the superior 
organism. But this is a vicious process, which not only adds 
nothing to our knowledge of the whole meaning and complete 
relation of a high and noble form of life, but tends to treat its 
most distinctive and glorious capacities as its accidentals, and to 
view what it shares with the most inferior type of its order as all 
that is essential to it. But it must be insisted that, however the 
forms of life have developed from lower forms by slow degrees 
and through enormous lengths of time, when we wish to define 
the noble results of the process or to express in some fit way 
(as nearly adequate as may be) the glory and significance of the 
whole, we must count the powers comprising the full capacity of 



AFTER-THOUGHTS AND READINGS. 223 

the most splendid forms. We must not view the highest as 
being only variations of the lowest, their significance being in 
the il inferior limit," but we must treat the lowest as being pro- 
phetic of the highest, the meaning of the inferior being disclosed 
only in the most sublime forms appearing in the series. In fact, 
the order of time and of production is of one sort; but the order 
of thought is of another, and even the direct reverse. In time 
and production, nature has slowly toiled along from feeble and 
simple forms to the marvelous complexity and strength of the 
human form and brain. But in thought this existed first, was 
all the time in nature as the ideal or aim, was involved in the 
very structure of the manifold mechanism, and could never have 
appeared at any point if it had not existed forever in the Mys- 
terious Source from which all the struggle of life proceeds, to 
which religion " binds us back." 

Here, then, stands the transcendent fact of life, itself the 
issue of all the million years of the earth's gestation, and rising 
into forms so glorious that any one of the prodigious number of 
them would justify all the forerunning ages of labor. As the 
lowest forms are resolved into the significance of the highest, so 
the stupendous fact of life embraces all the signs and facts 
which led up to it. In it all the earth is sunk. It traverses the 
whole area of experience, from the irritability which contracts 
the jelly of a medusa to the fibers which bear the load of love 
or thought in a human brain. But it is the thought and love 
which define life, nor the irritability of the jelly-fish, or the cir- 
culation in the protoplasm of a plant. 

in. IMMORTALITY AND CHARACTER. 

The majesty of .life, the display of power, the grandeur, the 
sublime and inspiring sights, — these are in mountains, in great 
rivers, in oceans, in gigantic trees and primeval forests, in Ni- 
agara, in the Amazon, in the Alps; but, greatest and most 
sublime of all, in the human will and the prodigious self-asser- 
tion of mind. It is this on which I wish to lay emphasis, as 
relating us to the vital currents that course around the earth, as 
plunging us in life till the waves roll above our heads. The 
sense of power and will in a great character, probably in all 
characters at great moments, is so grand, and its appearance a 



224 AFTER-THOUGHTS AND READINGS. 

sight so majestic that it is a look direct into life, — into the 
depth of personality, as immeasurable in what it may enjoy, 
and in the opportunity before it as in the innumerable aeons 
which have brought it to the knowledge of itself. When we see 
such a character, or when we put it on for a little space, or fill 
ourselves with it, we are like Michael Angelo who " said that 
when he read the Iliad he looked at himself to see if he were 
not twenty feet in height ■" we discover immortality ; we are in 
presence of something superior to the mutations of any other 
thing ; " personal continuance " appears inevitable, and death 
sweeps by like a bubble on nature's tide, bursting into the sky. 
This was the thought concealed in the rough reply of Frederick 
the Great "to a member of the academy who wanted to read 
him a long argument for the immortality of the soul: 'How so? 
You want to be immortal. But what have you done to deserve 
it ?' " To deserve immortality is to lay hold of that which is 
essentially immortal; then, speedily the immortality thereof is 
mingled with our consciousness. " Did you never feel," says 
Higginson, "when fully resolved and concentrated on something, 
— did you never feel for the time being such a consciousness of an 
individual force that it seemed as if you must survive beyond this 
earthly existence ; and that you were fitted and furnished for some- 
thing more than three score years and ten? It does not seem to me 
that a vast amount of strength is required to create this impression. 
Joseph Glanvil, the old mystic, said: ' Who knoweth mystery 
of the will, and its vigor ? Man yieldeth not to the angels nor 
to death utterly, save through the weakness of his feeble will!' 
. . . I say, with reverence, that God has put into some 
men's souls a sense of personal individuality so strong that they 
have no intention of dying. There is no argument that con- 
vinces us like the contemplation of a nature so strong. That 
Luther's or Theodore Parker's personal existence should have 
ceased! It is an absurdity!" 

Pp. 172-173. In "A Study of Lessing," a French au- 
thor, E. Fontanes, says: " He who seeks has already found. 
If he were a stranger to the truth, if it existed not within him, 
under the indefinite form of need, of desire, could he seek it? 
Is the brute a seeker of truth ? He who seeks has caught al- 



AFTER-THOUGHTS AND READINGS. 225 

ready a glimpse of the truth, and he rouses from his inaction 
because he loves it, and aspires to win it and embrace it with 
indissoluble clasp. So felt Pascal, exclaiming with penetrating 
accent like Christ's, ' Be comforted: you could not seek me if 
you had not found me.' " 

In the book of Genesis it is written: " God made the 
earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field before it 
was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew; for 
God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not 
a man to till the ground. But then went up a mist from the 
earth and watered the whole face of the ground." The poet- 
author of the book of Job says, "It is the divine spirit in man, 
even the inspiration of the Almighty, that giveth him under- 
standing." How these two texts may go together or how be 
woven will appear plain very soon by reason of a pretty allegor- 
ical image or interpretation which St. Augustine drew from this 
passage of Genesis, that old poem of creation. The ancient 
bard who sang the six days of creation and the rest upon the 
seventh day, may have been thinking of the dew when describ- 
ing how the earth was watered. Evidently he felt he must pro- 
vide some way of giving drink to the thirsty vegetables for his 
song clothed the earth with them before any rain had fallen. 
So he drew the poetic picture of a mist exhaled by the earth 
itself and then settling down and moistening the ground. There 
is a philosophical exactness in the words of our translation, and 
so, I find, there is also in the original. It is moisture that rises 
from the earth, that is, from the whole globe, the or bis terrarum, 
this being the first meaning of the Hebrew as it is of the English 
earth, from the deep interior, — it is, I say, the moisture from 
these deep resources which rises and waters the face of the 
ground, that is, the surface, the soil which the husbandman 
turns up, a few inches deep, with his tools, this being the first 
meaning of the Hebrew original as it is of the English ground. 
As if to make this still plainer, the poet writes " the face of the 
ground." The thought suggested is that, while the earth seems 
to water itself and therefore it would appear as if nothing were 
gained, it is the deep places and the whole substance which send 
up the refreshment to bathe the surface. Possibly it was with 
this thought in mind that Augustine drew from the text the 



226 AFTER-THOUGHTS AND READINGS. 

figurative meaning which I have mentioned. At any rate, the 
Saint's interpretation agrees well with the idea that it is out of 
the deeps that the surface of life is .refreshed. Augustine's ex- 
planation occurs in a work in which he is defending the book of 
Genesis against the objections of certain heretics. This he 
does as to the literal meaning of the story of creation. But also 
he states that there is beside a spiritual meaning hidden in the 
form of an allegory. In virtue of this spiritual meaning, Au- 
gustine taught that when it is related that there was a time 
when no rain fell upon the earth, but that a mist rising from 
the deep earth watered the face of the ground, "this means that 
prophets and apostles were once unnecessary, for every man 
bore the spring of revelation in his own breast." Here it is that 
we come upon the doctrine of the writer of Job, "It is the 
divine spirit in man, even the inspiration of the Almighty that 
giveth him understanding." For if there were no need of 
apostles and prophets because every one has the spring of revela- 
tion in his own breast, then revelation is like the moisture that 
watered the face of the ground. It must come up from the in- 
visible deeps, from the spirit of man not as cut off from the 
divine life and living by itself, but as joined with the Infinite 
Spirit and inspired with understanding by the perfect and 
almighty life in whom man lives and moves and has being. 

One thing seems very clear: that if revelation be not by 
nature in us, it cannot be in any manner. If revelation sprang 
not from a deep well within, unfathomable, according to Au- 
gustine's interpretation of the ancient legend, then surely, there 
could be no revelation for us at all. Nothing can be put upon 
us from without ; it must rise within us from the Source of 
being. No law can come to us with authority, unless it be 
already enacted in us. It seems very plain that if the divine 
things, the thoughts, the fears, the hopes, the adoration, the 
prayers, the mysteries, said to be revealed and inscribed here or 
there, at this time or that, came not up from within, from the deeps 
where all the manifold is lost in the One, then we could not so 
much as catch a glimmer from the language of the revelation ; 
it would speak in a tongue and with words to us unknown and 
lifeless. 



AFTER-THOtJGHTS AND READINGS. 22? 

P. 208. Beading in Wordsworth one morning, — for I like 
to begin the day with a poet, and keep one by me, lying long 
on my desk for that purpose, — I came on these passages in the 
fifth book of " The Excursion": — 

"The untutored bird may found and so construct, 
And with such soft materials line her nest. 
Fixed in the centre of a prickly brake, 
That the thorns wound her not : they only guard.* 

"I knew a Scottish peasant who possessed 
A few small crofts of stone-emcumbered ground; 
Masses of every shape and size, that lay 
Scattered about under the moldering walls 
Of a rough precipice ; and some, apart, 
' In quarters unobnoxious to such chance, 
As if the moon had showered them down in spite; 
But he repined not. Though the plow was scarred 
By these obstructions, ' Round the shady stones 
A fertilizing moisture,' said the swain, 
Gathers and is preserved; and feeding dews 
And damps, through all the droughty summer day, 
From out their substance issuing, maintain 
Herbage that never fails. No grass springs up 
So green, so fresh, so plentiful as mine.' " 

These pictures of the bird defended by the thorns that 
might seem to threaten her gentle breast, and the rocks gather- 
ing and shading moisture, and dews oozing from them in dry 
times, arrested me. I fell to thinking how true it is that there 
is no evil but drags some good after it. I have read that many 
an Eastern farmer, by vigorous cultivation, deep plowing, and 
much working of the ground, has got therefrom as good returns 
as some Western farmers who trust more to the fertility of their 
unbroken soil, and water it the less with their sweat. Perhaps 
the gain in manly vigor and effective habits may be a good 
thing furnished by the evils of stony and bleak soils. It seems, 
I said to myself, that evils never are set going in freedom nor 
turned adrift unbound, to do as they list, but always tethered in 
some way to a weight of good which they must drag after them. 

Thereupon, I began to think whether this fact be enough 
probed and searched to find out its full meaning; for I could 
not think of any ill which had not a good closely bound to it. 
And if, indeed, there were no bad thing whatsoever but must 
perforce bring a good thing with it, so that no evil is free, but 
always chained, and like a vicious animal dragging a good 
freight, I thought this might teach us a great deal about the 



228 after-Thoughts and readings. 

nature of the Unseen and Eternal, on whose holiness and love 
depend our worship, our hope, and our joy. 

Finding then that I could imagine no ill which did not help 
make some good, like a misshapen workman building a comely 
house, it came to me suddenly to ask whether, on the other hand, 
there were any good which did not bring with it some evil. 
And, in this, I was no more successful than before; for I could 
call to mind no pleasure without a pain and no excellence, of 
whatsoever kind, that had not some evils mingled with it or 
trooping after it. Here, then, must I stand, facing the fact 
that, although there be nothing altogether evil, as little, also, 
is there anything wholly good? For then, if the one fact be 
good for faith and hope, the other fact is bad for them; and 
religion will have a fall out of the sky, like a bird whose two 
wings should oppose instead of help each other. Thereupon, 
striving again to think of some good without detraction, some- 
thing wholly excellent, I thought of this: that it is altogether a 
good that there should be no evil without a good; for surely 
there can be no mixture of ill in the bonds laid on ill to bring 
some good with it. 

Here, then, there seemed to be a good which was unmixed 
and pure; and my soul was triumphant. But speedily came 
this question, Is not the fact, on the other hand, that every good 
brings an ill, a fact totally evil ? But to this I answered, No; for 
the pain that comes with pleasure, or the ill of what kind so- 
ever that goes with a good, may be a discipline of mind to fit it 
to love and enjoy the good, and all other excellencies, the more: 
whereas the good that follows an evil has no drift to make the 
mind love the evil better, but contrariwise. Thus, it seemed 
there was to be seen an unmixed good, but no unmixed ill. 
Here, I rested, with my heart content. 



/3x* 



